


we go together

by cracapaldi



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Amputee!Percival, Attempt at humour, Developing Relationship, Fluff, I'd call it a romcom but it's not really that funny, M/M, Playing fast and loose with canon agents and their death dates, Romance, Slow Build, Work Parties, if you want an estimation of the mood the title is a grease reference, you know just adding some character depth to someone only in the film for five seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4046710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cracapaldi/pseuds/cracapaldi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James is an outgoing, enthusiastic flirt. Alastair is...not.</p><p>(In which James' desire to get in Alastair's pants spirals out of control and Alastair's desire to remain as distant as possible fails miserably.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT MAY '17: made a title edit bc i hated the old one and also i just rewrote a bit! I wrote this like 2 years ago and I wanted to improve some bits and pieces and I'm maybe planning a new chapter between 12 and 13 because it seems a little disjointed, and maybe someday I'll do a proper rewrite. Anyway there are some new scenes and dialogue and I think it reads a little better so I hope you enjoy.
> 
> I'm not sure why I started writing this but I'm actually enjoying it for once. A lot of what's going on at the time is taken from my memory or from Wikipedia because I don't actually remember the nineties. Or the noughties, to be honest. Barely remember last year. If there are any errors do correct me and I'll change things. Unless it's what Little Chef was serving in 1998 or something like that because I don't really care about that.
> 
> I would call this kind of silly. There's karaoke. There are drunk nights out. There's my shitty action writing. It's mostly about what they do when they're not on missions, although that's there too.

_21 st May 1997_

Lee Unwin died. He threw himself onto a grenade right in front of the other three’s faces. James barely knew him – despite training together every day, James had never been interested in getting to know him. They had been training for months together, and yet he knew nothing about him apart from his name and that he had a son. The contest between himself and Lee had been tight. Merlin had been upping his game, even sending the pair out on real assignments with supervisors. _Toughest job interview in the world_ , Merlin had said when they'd first arrived. It seemed like an understatement, the process both far longer and more life-threatening than he'd imagined, but in the end, James was Lancelot. He’d imagined he would feel good about it. In some ways he did, yes. Months of work had paid off. But watching a young man – a young father – die right before his eyes and then almost instantaneously getting the position by default rather put him off.

He felt somewhat guilty for the situation playing out like it did. He drank a toast to the man he barely knew and was welcomed as Lancelot. He went home that night to a Kingsman assigned house, fed his dog and called his mum. When he returned to work the next day, he got to know the staff – the other agents, the tech department, the medics, everyone he could. He didn’t know Lee despite spending every day with him for nearly a year. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

People became his thing. He knew their birthdays, their interests, their pet peeves.

Harry Hart told everyone his favourite film was Goldfinger, while James knew it to in fact be The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Arthur was in one of the Carry On films as an army recruit.

He had Merlin’s mother’s phone number.

Anyone needed advice on birthday gifts, he was the man. He got invited to a lot of parties too, which was a bonus.

It came quite naturally to him. He’d always liked people, always liked knowing things. Always liked parties. It's funny how the skills he worked on to get information about his colleagues and friends ended up making him one of the best interrogators in the world.

*

_23 rd November 1997_

Percival – _David_ – died. James knew him better than he did Lee, but not well enough for his death to hit him particularly hard. It was the first proper toast he ever had at Kingsman – Lee’s being an unofficial farewell – and it felt _off_. Arthur’s detached speech about his legacy and quick moving on to how they are all expected to nominate a trainee for the position just felt out of place. He noticed different agents having various reactions to David’s death – ranging from blank faced to one agent appearing very close to tears. He found himself wondering what their reactions would be when he hopped the twig.

His suggestion for Percival wasn’t even his suggestion. He'd asked an older agent for advice and the other man said he’d sort it out for him. James was glad, having no idea what to do. He didn’t pay much attention to who he nominated (and he didn't need to, the man being eliminated within the first three weeks). He didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the trainees for a few months either. Not until the final five.

*

_25 th April 1998_

It was the first time James had actually looked at the trainees at all. The final five had been the final five for weeks. Most of the candidates had lost out fairly quickly, but these were holding on firmly. James sat himself next to Merlin in his headquarters, bringing gifts of Chinese food and cake from Christie in IT's birthday upstairs. Merlin welcomed it, sat on the edge of his seat as he watched the candidates on the screen. 

The brief was simple enough - a series of rooms, in each a different tool, with the aim to disarm or pass the assailants. Whoever turned out at the end would proceed. Of course, the assailants weren't real, just various members of different departments. James had always found their employment amusing - fight and play dead and you'd get a bonus at the end of the month. Unsharpened swords and unloaded guns wouldn’t actually kill anyone, but they’d still have to drop down. Kingsman had always provided them with shock-absorbing uniform as to minimise any pain. It had always attracted the over-dramatic. James always thought that it would have been his ideal job if he hadn’t become an agent. He rocked the office chair he'd taken up residence in from side to side, watching the task unfold from different cameras.

The first room was simple – a gun. All of them knew how to work through that. Well, all but one, who failed to pay attention to his surroundings and was promptly approached from behind by an ‘assailant’. Merlin voiced his amazement that the candidate had even made it that far, stating that most of his achievements had been pure luck. The screen switched off, leaving four. The feed switched to the next room.

“Really, Merlin, a bow and arrow?” James questioned. “When have you ever used one of those?”

Merlin shrugged. “I’m old fashioned, James.”

Of the remaining four agents, only one appeared to know how to actually fire accurately – James noted that the blond man looked upper class enough to have been training with it his entire life for some strange sport that only very conservative rich people in the countryside played. Two shot the arrows with varying degrees of accuracy, one getting the hang of it fairly quickly but in the end using the bow to hit several people in the face. The last one’s arrows swung off to the side before it had even left the bow and he was promptly floored by an attacker.

“You’ll like the next one, James,” Merlin said.

The next feed revealed two swords, which although blunt, were beautifully shaped, handles intricately carved and blade reflecting the light. “You’re right there.”

None of the candidates did badly with the swords, all proceeding to the next room. However, if there were rewards for performance, the slender trainee with dark hair and glasses would have won by a mile.

He turned his back on the assailants. James had thought that at that point he was out. But the man picked up the swords, one in each hand, testing their weight. He looked straight ahead, apparently listening to the attackers approaching. Then, abruptly, he back flipped, swords hitting the first pair of men in the head and the second pair under their feet. He landed with a skid and stood up, twisting himself round and knocking out three more of his opponents. It was impressive, and James was pretty sure he was showing off.

“You’d never know he was a gymnast,” Merlin murmured.

James watched closely. He was amazed. And a little aroused. “Who is he?”

“Alastair Jones. Ector’s suggestion. Cambridge graduate, trained to be a gymnast in secondary school. Was pegged as Olympic team material before a car crash and losing his leg. Arthur was therefore not expecting highly of him, old-fashioned bastard,” Merlin stated. “I can see the look on your face, James," he said, eyes never leaving the screen. "It’s never gonna happen.”

James frowned. “Why?”

“He’s uptight. Too stoic. The type to think that colleagues should remain acquaintances.”

“You can remain acquaintances after fucking,” James said. “I like a challenge.”

“Of course you do,” Merlin sighed. “I’ve put my money on him.”

“You bet on the candidates?”

Merlin glanced at him. “Of course I do. Most of us do. It’s surprisingly dull around here most of the time.”

“Did you bet on me?” James asked.

Merlin’s gaze returned to the screen. “Oh, look, he’s cleared the room.”

The next room – the last – had no weaponry in it. As soon as the door opened, the aggressors launched themselves at the trainees, giving them no time to assess their surroundings. James made an assessment of their fighting styles.

The other dark haired one. Erratic and unpredictable, which put him ahead of his opponent, but messy, blows rarely falling in the right place. James had seen bettwe tactics at a rave. He gave a valiant fight, but alas was floored by his attackers.

The blond one. Calculated and strong, but more predictable. His strikes however were well timed enough to allow him to clear the room fairly quickly and his ability to manoeuvre around the assailants allowed his movement to the other end of the room to be swift and simple. It reminded James of his own methods.

Jones. Alastair. Again calculated, but relied more on placing in the right area of the target than on brute strength. Once more his movements were graceful yet powerful, his stances well-balanced. He took them all out with ease. James was beginning to like him more and more.

“Right, that’s three gone,” Merlin said as he rose from his seat, switching the remaining feeds off. “Better go tell the other two to shoot their dogs.”

*

_26 th April 1998_

Alastair got the position. James knew he would. Any man who could move like that was too good to miss out on.

There was a party. There was always a party whenever a new agent was hired, simply because other employees enjoyed a good drink and get together. Most of the Kingsman agents didn’t even go, it was just the other employees. Merlin came to keep an eye on things (and for the free booze), occasionally bringing Harry if the other man was around. James had been quite surprised that Harry Hart actually rather enjoyed parties, despite pretending he didn’t. James was the only other agent who did go most of the time. Any excuse for a party on Kingsman’s human resources budget (every year a select few would argue to the higher ups that those sorts of things were important for the emotional well-being of the staff and for team-building). It rarely depended on what the new agent wanted. If it had, this one certainly wouldn’t have taken place. It was not, everyone knew even without meeting him, Alastair’s scene. He loitered at the edge of the room, drink in hand, looking perfectly comfortable with his own company. James wanted to change that.

As he sauntered over to the other man, he could see the look on Alastair’s face switch to that of a vague apprehension and anticipation of annoyance. James forced back a smirk, instead smiling amicably.

“Congratulations, Percival,” he said.

Alastair watched him warily. “Thank you. Lancelot.”

“Please, Lancelot is only for missions, not every day work. Nor parties. My name’s James.”

“I think I prefer Lancelot,” Alastair replied.

James raised an eyebrow. “And do you prefer Percival or Alastair?”

“Percival,” Alastair said firmly.

“What about Ally?”

Alastair looked at him with something akin to disgust. “Absolutely not.”

“Al?”

“No.”

James smiled. “Whatever you say, Al.”

Percival clenched his jaw. “How would you feel if I called you Jimbo?”

“I think I’d quite enjoy it, Al.”

Percival let out an exasperated sigh, before looking at his wrist (absent of a watch). “Oh, would you look at the time. Lovely talking to you Lancelot, but I’m off now.”

James pulled a disappointed face. “Leaving your own party early?”

Alastair smiled briefly as he walked away. “Come on, it’s only on for free drink.”

James grinned. “See you around, Al!”

Alastair didn’t reply, back already turned.

“Thought you were going to flirt with him, not scare him away,” Merlin appeared behind him. 

“I’m loosening him up,” James replied. “He likes me.”

Merlin simply blinked at him. “Did you just have the same conversation as I just watched? Because he certainly didn’t like you.”

“Give him time, Merlin. Give him time.”

 


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh I hate little chef I want everyone to know that going into this
> 
> Some actual notes: this chapter is short but the next one's already nearly twice this so I'm making up for it. The other thing is I've always felt German Shepherd is a good dog for James, but as soon as I read [reptilianraven](http://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven)'s fic [ Not According To Plan](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3812068), I thought a Borzoi was a fantastic breed for Percival. So I used that. (Also Not According To Plan is fantastic so if you haven't read it I'd absolutely recommend it)

_5 th May 1998_

The first assignment they did together was wrapped up fairly quickly. It wasn’t particularly challenging on the whole – dismantling of a small drug trafficking ring was something either one of them could do with their eyes closed, figuratively speaking, although Alastair wouldn’t put it past James to do it for a bet. Turns out the ring wasn’t actually as big as originally thought and probably wouldn’t require the Kingsmen to close it. They’d finished it in just over a day, which is why they ended up in Little Chef at 3am.

They sat at the table facing each other, Alastair staring with a troubled expression at his steak and onion baguette. “Why Little Chef, James?” Alastair had given in to James’ request of calling him James on the account that if he continued to call the other man Lancelot, James would continue to call Alastair ‘Al’.

James shrugged and took a bite out of his ham and cheese butty. Alastair winced. “It’s an experience, Alastair.”

“It’s an experience in the way that going to Slough is an experience - it’s unpleasant and you might be stabbed in the loos,” Alastair picked up a chip and inspected it. James realised that that was possibly the longest sentence the other man had ever said to him. His communication with James barely went over a few disapproving glances and vague eyebrow movements. Even on the mission, the longest sentence he had probably said was that of a single clause.

James looked at him, amused. “I think we’re more likely to be stabbed on the job than in Little Chef.” He watched the other man twist the chip in his fingers, like he was actively searching for a microscopic irregularity. “It’s not poisoned.”

Alastair sighed and put the chip back onto his plate. “Literally ten more minutes driving and we could have got decent food. No, scrap decent. Edible.”

James took a chip off Alastair’s plate and shoved it in his mouth. “It is edible, Alastair,” he said with his mouth full.

“Cardboard’s edible,” Alastair mumbled before reluctantly taking a bite from his baguette. He pulled a disgusted face.

James laughed. “You’re so middle class. It tastes fine.”

Alastair gave him _a look_. “What do you eat to make this fine? I’ll have to take you somewhere proper.”

“Hey, I’m not feral. I do eat ‘good’ food. I’m just not fussy.”

“Neither am I. I just have standards.”

James finished his butty and watched Alastair continue to glare at his food as if he expected it to transform if he stared at it with enough willpower. “Do you want me to mash it up?”

Alastair’s direction of glare switched from his food to his colleague.

 

*

James woke up to a hammering headache and lying on a rather uncomfortable surface. The first thing he realised was that he was, in fact, on the floor of a hotel room he didn’t recognise. Secondly, he wasn’t wearing any trousers. Thirdly, there was a hedgehog in front of him. How it got there, he didn’t know. He began to move, groaning as he ungracefully tried to stand up. It was a slow process as he lifted himself into a position where his arse stuck in the air unceremoniously, then into a staggering crawl as he braced himself on the bed in the room to bring himself to a stand. He leant against the wall as he blacked out for a moment.

As he opened his eyes again, he noticed a figure sprawled face down over the bed. Alastair. The usually well-dressed man had somehow acquired an ugly green shirt with the words _Pussy Patrol_ scrawled over the back. Or front, seeing as he was wearing it backwards. His suit trousers were cut into uneven shorts, and James noted that he was missing a leg. His glasses sat wonkily on his head, his hair mussed. _Cute_ , James' mind provided unnecessarily. He grunted and moved to shake the man awake. Alastair jolted awake and proceeded to groan loudly and press his hand to his forehead. He looked around the room, squinting.

“What time is it?” he said hoarsely.

James checked his watch. “Eleven twenty-three.”

“Where’s my leg?” Alastair asked.

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen it.”

“It has to be in here. I couldn’t have got here without it.”

“I don’t think it’s here.”

Alastair made an exasperated noise. “How did I get here?”

James pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, we’ll ask Merlin to run back through the tapes. I’ll go find you some crutches or something,” he retrieved his trousers from their place in the mini-bar. He looked around the room again briefly, walking over to the bedside table. He picked up two slips of paper. “Oh hey, we’ve got tickets to Eurovision.”

Alastair shoved his face back into the pillow.

James was gone about ten minutes and when he returned Alastair was no longer wearing the obscene t-shirt or his wrecked trousers, but a slightly crumpled dress shirt and some jeans. James handed him the crutches.

“Where did you get the clothes?” James asked.

“Lost property,” Alastair replied as he stood up.

“Why did they let you take lost property?”

“I paid the cleaning lady.” Alastair looked around the room. “You ready to go?”

James quickly entered the bathroom to retrieve a towel, before using it to pick up the hedgehog that had since retreated under the table. “Yeah.”

Alastair looked at the small animal for a moment before apparently deciding not to comment. “Right. Where are we?”

“We’re in a Travelodge in Basingstoke,” James replied as they left the room.

“Basingstoke? That’s almost as bad as Slough.”

“Although, we did have fun last night,” James grinned.

Alastair looked slightly disorientated. “I can’t remember last night.”

“Neither can I. That’s how I know it must have been fun.”

Alastair glared. “I’ll see if Merlin has it recorded from the cameras.”

*

Merlin did indeed have it recorded. Alastair knew it must be bad when Merlin greeted him with a full on  _grin_. Merlin’s poker face was usually so good.

It was bad. It was _so_ bad. Merlin had explained to him why they’d forgotten what had happened – they’d been drugged while taking out the drug ring, but it didn’t take effect for a couple of hours.

When it did, all hell had broken loose. Merlin told him it was the best laugh he’d had in years and was going to make sure that he preserved the tape so he could watch it when he was down or even use it for training exercises.

The worst thing was that he appeared to have been having a good time with James. Probably the best time he had ever had, looking at it from a third-person perspective. The more he thought about it, the more he began to realise that James – the aggravating, troublesome bastard – was someone with whom he'd had a good time. His jabs and jibes were more _amusing_ than annoying. They complemented each other on missions – James’ strength, Alastair’s skill, working together in almost perfect cooperation. And James seemed to genuinely like him. And Alastair liked him. He had never had that before and the fact that he had it with James of all people _did_ annoy him.

They’d only really been in each other’s company twice, and once was James purposely trying to bother him, and he _liked_ him.

That pissed him off.

*

As soon as Alastair opened the door to his house and greeted his borzoi, Madeline, the phone rang. He picked it up.

_“Alastair?”_

Typical. “James?”

_“Yeah. Um, could you dogsit for me?”_

Alastair didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t that. “What?”

_“Look, I’m busy and my dog’s got cystitis._

“Your dog’s got cystitis,” he deadpanned.

_“Yeah. I'll be back at 8 tomorrow morning but he needs to be let out every hour or so. I’d normally get my neighbour to do it but-”_

“No, it’s okay, I’ll do it,” _God knows why_. “How do I get in?”

_“Just pick the lock.”_

“Oh. I was expecting you to leave the key under the doormat or something.”

There was a laugh. _“I’m an international spy; do you think I’d leave the keys to my house on my door step?”_

“Point taken.”

*

And so Alastair went to James’ house. And picked the lock. And let the dog out.

He sat on James’ sofa, browsing up and down through the various channels aimlessly. At some point he must have stopped without realising because he found himself about ten minutes into an episode of Robot Wars, which he didn’t recall choosing to watch.

James’ dog, Oliver – a brute of a German Shepherd – laid his head on Alastair’s lap and watched him closely. Alastair scratched the dog’s ears absent-mindedly, eventually falling asleep to the not-so-soothing voice of Jeremy Clarkson.

*

Alastair left the house at 7, heading immediately to work. He filed the paperwork on their assignment, carefully leaving out anything that happened  _after_. He headed out of his office for some air a few hours later, ending up in the gym.

It was only after Alastair found himself _watching_ James as he trained that he realised he had an issue. He realised that his ‘liking’ of James may extend somewhat beyond that.

And it was only after the feeling of unadulterated panic filled him on the mission that James took just a bit too long to appear from the aftermath of an explosion was that he realised that his caring for his _colleague_ – and that’s what James was – went a tad further than he would have liked. 

James caught sight of him and offered him a glowing smile and a wave, tension from his beating of a punching bag relaxing out of his body.

"Shit," Alastair murmured.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone. 'Tis the season and all.
> 
> Also this'll probably be it until next weekend - I've got to do exams/work everyday this week so may not get the chance.

_15 th December 1998_

Their task had been simple enough. Get in, take a hard drive, get out. Only the owner of said hard drive had rather a lot of money that he spent on rather a lot of elaborate booby traps. Which was why Merlin decided to send two agents – one excited about the prospect of old spy movie style defence systems, one more annoyed at the need to spend that kind of money on something so completely complicated – to get to it.

They walked down a hallway, James bounding along beside Alastair, pestering him with questions of what spy films he’d actually seen and speculations of what kind of traps the building would have while Alastair kept his eyes ahead, looking for trip wires. When he finally took a moment to reply to his fellow agent, he was cut off by a fast pull at his leg, causing him to fall. But instead of hitting the ground, he found himself hanging upside down by one foot, head about an inch from the floor with James laughing at him.

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” James grinned.

Alastair crossed his arms, feeling the pressure building in his head. “Get me down, James.”

James laughed again. “Your face is so red!”

Alastair took a swing at James, who stepped away. “James! We’re working!”

“Didn’t you used to be a gymnast? Where’s that core strength?” he joked.

“James! Cut me down!” Alastair thrashed and tried to grab the other man, swinging around before catching hold of James’ legs, coming to a halt.

“What do you plan on doing now?” James smirked.

Alastair unhooked James’ knife from his belt, letting go of the other man and steadying himself before curling up on himself with some rather unattractive grunts. He sawed at the rope, quickly cutting through it and landing with a thud onto the cold floor. James offered him a hand, still laughing, and he took it, glaring at him.

They proceeded down the corridor, James with that stupid grin on his face. He sauntered down the corridor, looking out for trap doors or lasers or whatever other crap this guy put around. Suddenly Alastair’s hand shot across his chest, pushing him to a stop.

“What?” James asked.

“Look down.”

Sure enough, a thin wire stretched from one side of the hall to the other. “Oh, okay.”

“Look ahead.”

A network of wires crossed across the hall at various angles, like a spider web. James looked at Alastair’s slightly concerned expression. “We’ll be fine. You’re a gymnast and I’ve been office limbo champion three years running.”

Alastair nodded and they began the precarious cross of the wires. It wasn’t as bad as it had looked at the start – they were further apart than James had thought and both the agents crossed the trap fairly easily.

After that, it was just another long corridor to a door at the end, which Merlin informed them was where the desired hard drive was located. It was a fairly anticlimactic corridor (like most corridors).

“Perhaps there isn’t anything in this one,” Alastair said.

James groaned. “You’ve jinxed it now.”

Sure enough, as Alastair stepped on one of the floor tiles it pressed in about an inch. He stopped and looked at James, not moving. “That’s a button.”

“You know, it could just be a wonky tile.”

It wasn’t. After a few more seconds, water came gushing into the room at an alarming rate.

“This is inconvenient,” James stated. “Merlin, you better have the next door unlocked.”

 _“Working on it,”_ Merlin’s voice spoke from over their ear pieces.

James and Alastair looked at each other. They ran, feet splashing in the rapidly rising water. Soon, running became swimming. They reached the door as the water began to near the ceiling and they both took their final gasp of air before they were submerged.

They both swam down to the door, James pressing the button a few times uselessly. He shrugged vaguely at Alastair. The other man rolled his eyes. As their ear pieces had gone bust under water – which James had always thought was a critical flaw – so they had to simply intermittently press the button in the hopes that Merlin had sorted the lock out.

James figured they probably had two to three minutes. He would like to say he could manage longer but given the circumstances and being out of breath anyway he figured it would make less sense to lie to himself about his breath-holding capabilities. He took to floating by the button and pressing it around every five seconds rhythmically. When it finally gave, he wasn’t expecting it. They both rushed out of the open door in seconds, and the wave of water propelled them halfway across the next room. The water quickly left the room, leaving through the drains at the side of the room. Both men gulped and heaved on the floor. Alastair looked to the group of desks at the far end of the room. A monitor sat on the far left desk.

“You know I’d expect it to be more hidden than that,” he said breathlessly.

He slowly stood up and opened up the monitor, removing the hard drive carefully. James nudged him.

“Don’t mean to worry you, Al, but there appears to be a large cow at the end of the corridor.”

“What?” Alastair replied incredulously, standing up to look down the corridor and slipping the hard drive into his bag. There was indeed a bull on the other end of the corridor. “So there is, James.”

“Okay,” James murmured, eyes not leaving the tense animal. “I heard that angry bulls are very violent.”

“Oh, I think that’s a given,” Alastair muttered. “Why the bloody hell would this guy have a bull?”

“Creativity,” James shrugged. “Would you like me to tell you what a Spanish man told me before the Running of the Bulls?”

“Sure.”

“Stay out the way of the fucking bull.”

“Smart man.”

The bull began to charge, feet slipping slightly as it started on the wet floor. As it got close, James roughly shoved Alastair in the opposite direction to which he himself jumped and the animal crashed heavily into the desks. Both men rushed out the room, Alastair slamming his hand onto the button as they left. The door closed painfully slowly and the bull began to ready itself to charge again. The door closed just in time for the creature to slam into it with a large thud, the metal of the door reverberating.

Alastair let out a long-suffering sigh.

*

_20 th December 1998_

James knew they’d gotten much closer over the past few months. He felt he was at a point where Alastair actually felt they were friends, even. The other man had grown more relaxed in his company and was starting to open up, on the whole. His own personal desire to simply get in Alastair’s pants, as it were, had sort of spiralled out of control emotionally and now James was fairly sure that he wanted more than that.

James wasn't one to aimlessly  _pine_. He'd been what his friends called a bit of a player (and what him mother called a bit of a slut) since he'd had his growth spurt at age 14. At university, he left behind an endless string of one night stands and friends with benefits, but no girlfriends or boyfriends. He wasn't cold - far from it - but  _love_ had always seemed like it was made for someone else. James was well aware that made him sound like Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. 

Still, he still felt like he was in with a shot no matter how much it shook him. Despite his unwillingness to show any indication that he actually liked James, after much overuse, Alastair had given up on trying to stop James using ‘Al’, which James took as approval.

“Hey, Al,” he greeted cheerfully as he walked into the other man’s office.

“Mm,” Alastair acknowledged.

“You coming to the Christmas party?” James asked, dragging one of the chairs at the side of the room to the edge of Alastair’s desk.

Alastair looked up from his paperwork. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Oh come on dear, live a little! It’ll be great – free booze, dancing, karaoke…”

Alastair returned to writing. “Sounds abysmal.”

“Don’t make me go alone,” James pleaded.

“I’m sure you could find someone else to go with, you’re popular enough.”

James smiled. “I’m glad you acknowledge how loved I am, but I want to take you.”

Alastair put his pen down. “Why?”

“Without me, how are you going to see the world?”

“I wouldn’t call a Christmas party ‘seeing the world’, James.”

James sighed. “No, but it’s a life experience.”

Alastair looked like he was thinking hard about it. “Fine, I’ll come. I’ll regret it, but I’ll come.” He paused. “Any other agents going?”

“No. Everyone’s invited, but most of them think they’re above it. Harry and Merlin might show their faces though.”

“Harry? Didn’t think he was the type.”

“Oh, Harry enjoys a cheeky tipple,” James grinned, sitting forward in his seat. “Last Christmas really broke him into it. We got him hammered and he sang What’s New Pussycat on top of a table.”

“Who’s we?” Alastair asked.

“Merlin and a few of us trainees. He’d decided Harry was too uptight so roped us into getting him drunk. It worked,” he stood up and moved the chair to its original location. “I’ll get a taxi and pick you up at six. Don’t wear a suit.”

*

James arrived at Alastair’s house at 6:04pm. As he opened the door, Alastair resisted the urge to point out James’ lateness.

“I didn’t think you owned any jeans, Al,” James said when he saw him in all his semi-casual glory.

“Good evening to you too,” Alastair replied as he locked the door behind him. He followed James into the taxi.

The drive was about fifteen minutes. Neither really spoke to each other after the first two minutes, choosing to listen to the soft hum of the engine and the less soft hum of the driver. As the cab pulled up outside the tailor’s, James thanked and paid the driver. They walked through the doors and into one of the dressing rooms before descending to the floor below, making their way to one of the capsules and setting off.

“Where is the party, James?” Alastair asked. “I don’t remember ever being told.”

“It’s in the sports hall. That’s the usual venue.”

The capsule drew to a halt. The soft hum of trashy pop greeted them as they stepped out. They walked into the hall and James left his company, leaving Alastair to observe the layout of the room. They’d done well with the decorations, he thought – the room no longer looked like a military training facility and appeared relatively normal. There was a Christmas tree, fairy lights fading in and out intermittently and crappy plastic star perched haphazardly on top. Some tables and chairs sat and the near end of the room before clearing into what seemed to be a rather empty dance floor. The multi-coloured lights shone around it, highlighting its vacancy. The speakers in the far corner were hooked up to both a microphone, a karaoke machine and a computer.

James returned to his side, two burgers in hand. “It’ll fill up later. It’s just best to get food earlier before they start using the bread from last month for the burgers.” He took a large bite out of one of the burgers and handed Alastair the other. “Sit. I’ll get drinks.”

Alastair took a bite of the burger as he sat at one of the tables. It was, surprisingly, not bad. Somehow both burnt as well as undercooked, but not actually terrible. The bread wasn’t stale, which was a bonus.

James came and sat at the table, handing the other man his drink. “Pint of beer for you, Long Island Iced Tea for me.” At Alastair’s slightly incredulous look, he responded, “Look, I want to make the most of this party and get as drunk as possible as early as possible. I figure I’ll be bollocksed by the time most people have got here.”

“Right.”

James was correct. He was hammered by about nine. It surprised Alastair that he had lasted that long given the sheer amount he drank and he wasn’t even as drunk as Alastair would have thought he would be. James had been slurring about egg sales for about ten minutes now and Alastair had zoned out and taken to watching a drunk nurse slaughter her way through some new Spice Girls song.

“Having fun, are we?” Harry’s voice sounded from behind him.

“Oh thank god,” Alastair breathed.

Harry sat down at their table and also ignored James’ British Egg Industry Council pitch, choosing to talk to Alastair instead. Their conversation wasn’t particularly sophisticated, but was a huge relief to Alastair, who had just listened to an inebriated James all evening.

“Where did James go?” Harry asked, interrupting the conversation, looking like a parent who'd just lost their child by the pool on holiday.

Alastair turned around to the seat where James had been sat to see it empty. After a moment of puzzlement, a microphone screeched and he turned to look at the karaoke machine. And of course, there James stood, microphone in hand. He winked at him.

“Oh no,” Alastair murmured as the first few bars played over the speakers.

 _“Uptown girl,”_ James started singing, looking at him.

“Oh no,” Alastair repeated, slightly louder.

The half of the song went on and James remained where he stood, simply swaying slightly off-beat. It was the sort of karaoke performance that was both good and terrible, therefore somewhat amusing. Then, just before the second chorus, he started walking towards Alastair. Alastair buried his head in his hands, hearing only Harry’s quiet laughter and James’ surprisingly not terrible singing.

 _“And when she’s walking, she’s looking so fi-yi-yine,”_ James sang, accentuating the final word in a way that several people snorted. He hit Alastair’s table, placing his hand on the other man’s back.

 _“And when she’s talking, she’ll say that she’s mi-yi-yine,”_ he sang in his ear and Alastair winced. _“She’ll see I’m not so tough,”_ he pulled him to his feet and led him into the centre of the dance floor. _“Just because I’m in love with an uptown girl.”_

“James,” he muttered under his breath disapprovingly, finding the experience embarrassing, awful, and although he'd never admit it, weirdly enjoyable.

James finished the song with what Alastair presumed to be an attempt at audience participation, grabbing some people from the circle that had formed around them to force them to sing the final lines. It kind of worked, if 'working' included getting about five drunkards to sing lines they didn’t know out of tune. As the song drew to an end, James wrapped his arm round Alastair’s shoulder, holding the microphone in the air triumphantly.

“I think you’ve had too much, James,” Alastair said to the other man, leading him to the side as the music began to play again.

“You’ve not had enough, dear.”

“I think I’m quite alright, thank you,” Alastair replied. “I don’t plan on staying much longer anyway.”

James laughed. “I want to be here for another few hours yet, Al, and we’re sharing a taxi.”

Alastair thought about the prospect of spending much longer with James being _this_ drunk and found himself agreeing with James. He knew the other man would probably drive him insane. He sat James at the table and went to the bar. He returned with a tray of five shots.

James grinned. “What are they?”

Alastair shrugged. “I just asked the bartender for whatever. He said five would do me,” he said, and then began to down the shots. He finished them, slamming the final one down with a grimace.

“I would’ve thought you’d be a sensible drinker,” James said, albeit slightly mispronounced, watching Alastair closely.

“I’m not spending another few hours with you when I’m sober,” Alastair replied. “Got to take some risks.” He’d always had a high alcohol tolerance, so wondered if he would be on level with James in terms of intoxication.

Sure enough, thirty minutes later, he was dancing with James to Billie Piper.

Twenty minutes after that, he was arguing with the other man about Billie Piper’s career prospects.

“I think she ha’ a prom’sing mus’cal career ahead ‘fer,” James slurred.

Alastair pointed at him. “No, no, no. She’ll do well f’r ‘bout two years, the she’ll disapp’r. Like Bizz Nizz.”

“Who?”

“Exactly,” Alastair replied.

James groaned, before his expression changed. “What’re you doin’ for Chris’mas?”

Alastair’s expression appeared to sober slightly. “Nothing. Not really on good terms with family.”

“So you’re alone?” James asked.

Alastair nodded, quickly adding, “’T’s fine, really. Used to it.”

James frowned for a moment, before relaxing into an excited smile. “You could spend it with me.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” James nodded firmly. “Jus’ me and my mum.”

“Your mother?” Alastair questioned.

“Mm. She’d like you.”

“Right. Uh, okay.”

James slapped him on the shoulder. “Goodo.”

They hung around until they got bored, which wasn’t too long due to people beginning to leave at around eleven. They decided to leave at ten to twelve, before realising they were short of money to go to both of their houses. After a short argument, James suggested they just went to his. Alastair settled on that being the best idea they had and set off.

Alastair didn’t pay much attention on the taxi ride, too focused on James’ fascination with his own coat zipper. He didn’t really know why, but he knew they were laughing. As the cab pulled up to the kerb outside James’ house, he thanked the driver and stumbled out, tripping on the kerb. He stood up and laughed, while James unlocked the door, missing the keyhole a few times. When the door finally opened with a satisfying click, James greeted his dog rather enthusiastically, nearly falling over the excitable German Shepherd. Alastair walked into the house, leaning heavily on the walls.

“If you want my bed you can have it,” James told him. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“No, it’s fine, James,” Alastair waved his hand.

“I insist,” James stared directly into his eyes.

Alastair paused. He coughed. “But-”

“No. Go to bed.”

Alastair continued looking at him, almost defiantly, for a few more moments before giving in. “Fine. Night then.”

James smiled. “Night,” he said as he turned his back and entered the living room and shut the door.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this chapter, but it's not really graphic. I mean what the hell kind of story would this be if there weren't people being punched in the face, eh? 
> 
> There's a bit of a Black Books reference here, if you like that. Who knows.
> 
> Thank you for the comments and kudos! It really means a lot to me and I'll try to update as often as possible, although I'm very busy this month so I apologise if I don't. I'm aiming for at least one a week.

_22nd December 1998_

As Alastair came to in an unfamiliar bed the next morning, he was assaulted by a wave of nausea and a pounding headache. It took him longer than usual to get out of bed, slipping out slowly. He vaguely noticed he was still wearing last night’s clothes, even his shoes, as he stumbled out of the room and down the stairs. His opening of the door revealed James, characteristically perky, humming to himself while cooking something in a pan. On any other morning, Alastair would say that it smelt good, however on this specific one, the smell of food was sickening.

“How the hell are you so cheerful?” he asked weakly.

James turned, that same grin plastered to his face. At this point Alastair almost wanted to slap it off. Unfortunately, he was fairly sure James would enjoy that and bounce back with a bigger smile. “That’s just who I am. You should try it sometime.”

“I’m a happy-go-lucky scamp,” Alastair grumbled, pulling a chair out from the table and lowering into it with a wince. James placed a murky green liquid in front of him. “What’s that?”

“Hangover cure. Merlin gave it to me months ago, apparently Kingsman have been making it for a while,” James replied, poking the contents of the frying pan with a spatula.

“Kingsman makes hangover cures?” Alastair asked, slightly incredulously.

James shrugged. “Suppose Kingsman needs its employees to be on top of things. No point banning drinking the night before, everyone would be fired within a week."

Alastair nodded and sipped the drink. He grimaced, “This tastes like someone dropped a cheese string into a glass of bleach.”

“Might be supposed to put you off drinking,” James suggested, removing the pan from the heat and scraping the food onto two plates. The toaster pinged and the bread shot up with an unsatisfying clink. As James placed each slice onto the plate and brought the breakfast to the table – egg on toast – he frowned slightly. “Have toasters ever actually thrown the toast into the air? Like on TV and that.”

Alastair frowned. It was too early for this. He cut the toast and egg. “What do you mean?”

“Like that Morecambe and Wise sketch. The stripper one. Is projectile toast a thing?” James asked.

“Doubt it. It’d be a design flaw,” Alastair said as he took a mouthful. “Can’t have toast go flying every time you have breakfast, can you? Not everyone is coordinated enough for that.”

“Then why does it happen on the telly?” James responded, mouth full.

He shrugged. “Artistic license?” He looked at his now empty glass. “I’m surprised how fast that worked.”

“I’ve always said they should sell it. No better way to protect the British public than to cure hangovers,” James told him. “But apparently we don’t have enough money to manufacture it for public consumption.”

“How did you find that out? About the economic situation of the company?” Alastair inquired.

“I asked if I could put the cost of going zorbing on expenses. For training and that.”

Alastair frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good example of why we don’t have enough money.”

“I also may have been forced to do the accounts,” James replied.

“Why? I’m sure we have people for that. Was it like detention?” James looked away briefly. “Oh god, it was! What did you do? Skip PE? Hand in homework late?”

James frowned. “I got side-tracked on a mission. Fulfilled the objectives, but Merlin thought it was through a rather dubious method.”

“What method would that be?”

“I slept with both the head of the organisation we were taking down and her assistant.”

“Right,” Alastair wasn’t surprised, if he was honest. “I thought Kingsman didn’t look down on sex to get what you want?”

“They don’t. I wasn’t being punished for the head of the organisation. But my,” he paused, “relations with the assistant were hardly a necessary contribution to the situation and Merlin deemed them a waste of time given the assignment,” James finished his toast, collecting Alastair’s plate and putting them by the sink. “Anyway, you alright for Christmas?”

“Um, yeah. Sure.”

“Right, I’ll pick you up Christmas morning,” James said. “Be festive.”

*

_23 rd December 1998_

They were unprepared from the start. Arthur had sent them on a mission they weren’t ready for because it needed to be done as quickly as possible. Kingsman was rarely clumsy, but this time it was much like an elephant on laughing gas skateboarding down some stairs.

In an attempt to make up for this, they sent three agents. Ector, who specialised in criminal psychology - among other things - and Lancelot and Percival, who most agreed were the ‘dream team’ when it came to combat. They were however more of a nightmare team when it came to control, James being endlessly annoying and trigger happy and Alastair being mildly sulky and terrible at openly communicating.

As they entered what appeared to be a military base from the outside and a lab from the inside, everything immediately felt _off_. Alastair was unsure as soon as they set foot in the base. Hell, he was unsure before that. He was unsure about it In the car there, he was unsure about it at HQ and he was fairly sure he was unsure about it before he was even assigned to it. The one thing that put his mind slightly at rest was James was there.

The decision to split up was not one Alastair favoured. While someone who did enjoy his own company, he didn’t feel this was the situation to do so. Ector split off early, gun steadied in hand as he rounded a corner out of sight. They entered another room, pausing to look around.

It was a tall room, like that in a hall, and was a cleanly whitish grey. There were some mirrored windows high up the wall and the laboratory desks were separated into four rows. It smelt vaguely of yoghurt.

Alastair walked to one of the monitors and inserted a hard drive into it. He turned to look at James. The other man was standing still, staring quite adamantly at the wall. Alastair walked up behind him, and as he drew closer he could see a red button on the wall with a sticky note on reading ‘Do Not Press’. He watched James’ face, almost imagining a slow zoom in on him while tense music played in the background.

“Lancelot?” he interrupted.

“I wasn’t going to press it,” James looked back to him quickly.

“Right,” Alastair dismissed any questions. “If we’re splitting up, you go straight on and I’ll go through the door on the left.”

“Alright,” James replied, walking out of the door ahead. “I’ll miss you!” he called back.

Alastair sighed. “Merlin, you got anything?”

 _“Afraid not, I might be able to get into the layout and open some doors for you in a bit, but for any information you’re just going to have to find the mainframe yourself,”_ Merlin’s voice rang over his earpiece. _“Although Ector’s stopped moving, he might have something but I can’t get a visual.”_

“Okay, I’ll just head on then,” he replied as he continued his walk down the corridor.

The corridor was dull. No duller than most corridors if he was honest, as corridors are fairly uneventful on the whole anyway. The repeating boards of dull plasterboard were occasionally interrupted by a column of brickwork. Nice brickwork, but still simply brickwork. Apart from the odd abstract splatter of an unknown substance on the wall, there was little of note. There weren’t even any doors, just simply a long and seemingly unending hallway of poor lighting and the smell of dry rot.

At last it ended though, coming out into a room very similar to the last, sans the desks.

“Fancy seeing you here,” a voice called. James.

“I thought I’d got rid of you,” Alastair replied jokingly.

James grinned. “Nope. This is what I’m like. You think I’m gone, but then I just come right back again. Like a cold sore. Or Bono.”

Just as Alastair was about to reply, the two doors into the room were shut off by a very sudden and very fast sheet of metal. It wasn’t like in movies where the door takes verging on a minute to close, where just enough time for every member of the group of heroes, any villain within a two mile radius and half a herd of cattle to get through is provided before the entrance closes. No, it was swift and heavy. Probably the better option for trap design.

Alastair stared at the now shut off doorway. “That’s convenient.”

The ring of feedback suddenly filled the room and he winced. _“Hello,”_ an unfamiliar voice spoke.

“Oh god, it’s not a cliché villain style speaker system, is it?” James groaned.

“At least he’s polite,” Alastair replied.

 _“May I ask you your names, agents?”_ The voice continued.

Alastair decided against asking how he knew they were agents. He’d met this type of guy before – the type to go off on a long spout of useless detail in an attempt to show intelligence once asked a question.

“I’m Agent Fraser, this is Agent Kowalski," James said. "Who are you?”

_“I’m not at liberty to say.”_

“Bloody brilliant,” James muttered.

 _“I’m afraid to tell you that your fellow agent has sadly met his demise,”_ he continued with a bored drawl.

“Wait, what?” James blurted, heart sinking.

_“He’s dead. Bereft of life. Kicked the bucket. Whatever.”_

Both men quickly glanced at each other, look of shock briefly crossing their faces before the trained mask slipped back.

_“Anyway, I have two things to say. Firstly, this room jams the signal, so any communications you have to whoever you work for are blocked.”_

Okay, no Merlin. Alastair had a feeling that whatever was coming next would illuminate how dire the situation actually was.

 _“Secondly, Agent…Fraser,”_ the man sounded disbelieving of the name, _“has been injected by a tiny dart to the back of the neck.”_

James’ hand immediately shot to the back of his neck, and he brought it back with a small green capsule with a needle on the end in the palm of his hand. He didn’t look worried, merely perplexed. Alastair however, did look intensely worried.

_“It won’t kill him. But it may kill you, Agent Kowalski.”_

“Look mate, we really don’t have time for you to be talking in fucking riddles. What’s going on?” James asked slightly angrily.

The voice sighed. _“It contained a compound we have been developing for a while. It is an aggressor, causing loss of conscious thought. Takes effect around ten minutes after injection, so I say you probably have about three minutes, Agent Fraser. After that, your mind will go blank for twenty minutes and you will exert that aggression on whomever or whatever is in the room. After that, you’ll wake up to the consequences.”_

James scowled. “Have you tried  _not_ sounding like a Bond villain?"

 _“I’m not going to be talking to you anymore. I’ll be watching, though,”_ the voice droned again. How a man who was about to witness a fight of his own making and had come up with a long, elaborate plan could continue to sound bored, they didn’t know. _“Goodbye, lads.”_

Alastair took out his gun and fired numerous bullets into the plasterboard roof.

“What are you doing?” James questioned, beginning to look more than a little stressed.

“Getting rid of all my ammo. I’d rather you didn’t shoot me, James. I’d recommend you do it too,” Alastair said, stopping firing momentarily to reply before continuing.

James took out his guns and fired into the same spot.

It took about two minutes for them to use all their bullets. James was paling quickly.

“You got anything else?” Alastair asked.

“I’ve got two knives,” James replied, look of concentration on his face.

“Give them to me.”

James took them out and handed them over, jaw clenched. “Why?”

“I should be able to try and keep them out of your reach for long enough. Being stabbed is not an appetising prospect for me,” he looked at James. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” James bit out. Abruptly, he dropped to his knees. Alastair rushed to him, holding him up by his shoulders. “I trust you.”

Alastair frowned. “This isn’t a question of trust, James.”

And then, his face relaxed, eyes emptying of the energy that was so obviously James. He blinked and his expression switched from strained to pure, concentrated rage. Alastair jumped back, getting away from the other man and backing into the wall, though the room was probably only around six metres in diameter so it wasn’t too far away. James approached him slowly, so he backed away. He wondered how long he could run around the room with the other man following him. He figured it’d at least kill some time.

It worked, for about ten minutes. Alastair was just glad that ‘James’ was a whole lot thicker than James himself. _Yakety Sax_ might as well have been playing. Running in circles around a room worked until James worked out he could walk across the room and managed to get close enough to swing punches. Alastair blocked them easily, until one collided with his face and he reeled back.

“Sorry,” he murmured, one hand pressed to his face, before punching the other man in the stomach.

James doubled over and Alastair kicked his legs out from under him. He pinned the man to the floor, one arm pressed close to his neck and his other hand gripping the agent’s wrist and forcing it close to breaking point. He wasn’t used to being careful when fighting and it was an odd experience. Going limp, James breathed heavily, catching his breath for a short while. Alastair figured they probably had about five more minutes until the drug wore off.

James abruptly gripped Alastair’s arm, leg shooting out to kick the other man’s legs out from under his kneeling position. Alastair brought his own legs up to hook over the man’s shoulders, pushing him away. He attempted to stand up but James launched himself on top of Alastair, pinning him to the floor with his legs either side of Alastair’s hips.

Their fighting became less organised and devolved into slapping and awkward pushing, like two children having spat over a toy, though in this case it was two specially trained agents fighting due to a drug. And then one of the children got a hold of a knife off the other child and tried to kill him.

James had pulled the smallest blade out of Alastair’s and Alastair had grabbed the man’s wrist as he attempted to bring it down on him.

“God’s sake James, this has got to wear off soon,” Alastair muttered as he struggled to hold the arm aloft. His arm shook and he knew he couldn’t hold it for much longer. He hoped James would return to normal before the knife fell; there couldn’t be much more time until the drug wore off. He would feel much better about the situation if he was the one on top or if he could actually kill his opponent. This sort of thing was always difficult when one cared about the person trying to murder you.

As the blade continued to descend slowly, he figured he should take a risk. He kicked upwards, knocking James to the side and rolling on top of him. There was a pain in his upper arm. He looked at it and was mildly surprised to see the blade lodged in the muscle. Conveniently, it was at that moment that James returned. Alastair leant back and pressed his hand to his arm, letting relief wash over him. Whether it was relief for the ending of the fighting or relief that James was alright, he didn't care to distinguish. 

“Oh good, you’re alive,” James murmured, looking up at him. His eyes passed over his friend. He stared at the other man’s bloodied arm and the blade embedded within it before his eyes flicked to Alastair's face and they locked eyes for a few moments, at a loss for words. James coughed and broke the silence. He looked back to Alastair's arm. “Christ mate, sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m not going to die in the immediate future,” Alastair replied tensely. “We’ve been off grid long enough for Merlin to send back up or have hacked the system,” he added quietly.

James nodded vaguely, still lying on the floor.

*

Alastair was right, and one of the doors opened smoothly. They left, James more quiet than Alastair had ever known him to be. It was strange being with the other man and not hearing a single peep out of him. The man was a notorious chatterbox. The lack of sound was eerie. When their earpieces cut back in it was a relief.

_“Lancelot? Percival? You two alright?”_

They continued down the hall. “Yeah, we’re good,” Alastair replied. “What’s the plan?”

 _“I’ve had a talk with Arthur. He says abort the mission,”_ Merlin replied.

“What?” James asked, speaking for the first time in a while. “He’s always said never abort the mission. I’ve talked to him about it.”

 _“Yes, but-”_ Merlin began.

“I told him, I said to him, ‘Arthur,’ I said, ‘if worst comes to worst, should we abort the mission?’, and he said, ‘No,’” James put on a deeper, posher voice in a poor imitation of his boss. “’We never abort the mission, a gentlemen never gives up.’”

_“Lancelot-”_

“And I said, ‘what about that time when I beat you at poker? You kept demanding a rematch so I agreed several times and won on each go and you gave up,’ and he said-”

_“James-”_

“’Oh, I never lost a penny to you,’” James returned to the deep voice, wobbling his head slightly as he spoke. “And do you know why that was? He took it out of my pay, cheap bastard.”

_“James!”_

James stopped at the end of his anecdote. “Yep?”

 _“Arthur told me to get you out. We went in unprepared. We’ve lost Ector. We don’t want to lose any more agents today.”_ Merlin sighed. _“Just get out. We’ll pick you up. Do you need anything?”_

“First aid,” Alastair replied, never more pleased to hear one of James' aimless tales of woe.


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not being here for so long! I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks but hopefully I can update a lot more now. Also apologies for the short chapter, I just really wanted to get something up.

_25 th December 1998_

James arrived at Alastair’s house just after ten. Alastair opened the door to the knock and James looked him up and down twice, analysing his clothing choices, eyes stopping on Alastair’s black eye and sling for a few moments, and gave him a contemplating expression before stating, “That won’t do,” and barging in past him into the house.

“And a Merry Christmas to you too, James,” Alastair muttered and followed the other man to the living room.

James had already set down his small backpack and pulled out three Christmas jumpers.

“Jesus, you’re like a Christmas Inspector Gadget,” Alastair said under his breath as he looked at the array. The first was a deep blue with a rather intimidating snowman peering up from the bottom left corner, the second a vibrant red with linear patterns of various cross-stitched snowflakes, and the third a sort of maroon with a large blue tree ornament on it with the phrase _Tickle My Baubles_  written neatly around it. He stared at the final one, vaguely alarmed look on his face. “Isn’t this a dinner with your mother?”

James looked nonplussed. “She’ll love that! She’ll get it, it’s right up her street.”

“Well, it’s not right up mine. It’s out my street, across the road, past the corner shop and on the other side of the park. I’m not wearing it,” he replied firmly.

James sighed dramatically. “Right, which are you going to wear then?”

“I don’t know. The red one.”

“Okay,” James said, throwing the red one at him. “Put it on and I’ll find something to deal with your black eye.”

Alastair removed his sling and gingerly pulled the sleeve over his arm before putting it back on and pulling the rest of the jumper on. James grabbed him and sat him down a moment after, small bottle of concealer in his hand. “Why do you have that?”

“Always be prepared,” James murmured, applying it to Alastair’s eye.

The other man flinched back at first but James persisted. “Prepared for what? Making your skin look clear and radiant?”

“My skin’s always clear and radiant. No, it’s for making sure my mum doesn’t think I’ve joined the mafia.”

A minute later he was done and the bruise was fairly well covered. James grabbed Alastair by his good arm and pulled him to the door. “Let’s go.”

*

As they stood outside the door to James’ mother’s house at 1:30pm, drizzle falling lightly on the ground, James removed his coat to reveal what could only be described as an embarrassment. The jumper was a pale green, an imposing image of a reindeer’s face sewn to the front, its nose lighting up red. On the back was a beautifully depicted image of a reindeer’s arse.

“Hey, Al, watch this,” he whispered, though Alastair was unsure why seeing as they were outside. He pressed the nose of the reindeer and the jumper emitted what sounded like ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’, if ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ had been recorded in a tin can and then covered by The Wurzels after a long night of heavy drinking. James looked awfully proud of himself.

Before Alastair could respond, surely with a derogatory comment, James’ mother opened the door. She greeted them both with a hug and invited them in. She was a short woman, white hair in loose curls and a warm smile. Her glasses masked a pair of familiar eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alastair,” she said to him in an Irish accent. “James talks so much about you.”

“Oh, does he?” He smiled smugly, glancing at James, who had taken to inspecting what he appeared to think was an extremely interesting spot on the table.

She returned the smile and continued pottering about the kitchen. “Yes. You know, I don’t think he’s talked about someone like that since his last partn-”

James let out a bark of laughter, interrupting her. “Excuse us for a moment please, mother,” he said, gesturing to Alastair to follow him into the hallway.

When they were round the corner, James pulled Alastair closer to him, speaking in hushed tones. “She thinks we’re,” he paused, gesturing vaguely, “an item.”

“What?” Alastair replied, in equally quiet volume.

“I don’t know, she always jumps to conclusions!” James whispered. “I tried to tell her but she didn’t believe me,” he added, before returning to the kitchen where his mother continued to work.

“Do you want any help, Sheila?” Alastair asked.

“No dear, I’m quite alright. Sit down. Lunch is nearly ready,” and of course it was. She brought the food over to the table, laying it down in such a way it looked like it had been set up by a film crew to look particularly delicious. Or poisoned, although Alastair didn’t think Sheila Spencer was trying to poison her son and his ‘partner’. She sliced the chicken – stating she would have preferred turkey but apparently the local shop didn’t sell turkey and the only birds it did sell were chicken and ostrich, the latter being not widely considered either Christmassy or closely related to a turkey – and laid it on his plate. It was at that point Alastair realised he couldn’t actually cut his food up. He stared at the slowly growing amount of food on his plate with vague distress.

James sprung at the opportunity to help – and to gain some valuable blackmail material – and cut his friend’s food into bite-size pieces. Alastair looked away, slightly embarrassed at his lack of ability to do anything, and James grinned at him, holding a fork with a small chunk of meat on it.

“Open wide,” James said.

“James, I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself,” Alastair replied slowly.

“Here comes the choo-choo train,” he said seriously, waving the fork up and down in a fluid motion towards Alastair’s face. “About to go through the tunnel…”

“Tunnel’s closed,” Alastair replied through gritted teeth, before grabbing the fork moodily and eating it himself. James returned to his seat, satisfied look on his face.

Sheila sat down at the table and passed round a bottle of wine. She held up her Christmas cracker, and the other two soon followed to form a circle, although Alastair held two awkwardly in one hand. Of course, it meant that he didn’t win either of them. Sheila passed him one of hers. He took out the paper crown and looked at it distastefully, before silently putting it on his head after a stern look from James. He emptied the rest of the cracker, a miniature pair of nail clippers and a joke falling out. He chose to ignore both.

“What do snowmen wear on their heads?” James asked, looking round the table for some sort of acknowledgement. Receiving none, he continued anyway. “Ice caps.”

Once again, there was no acknowledgement. “So Alastair, why aren’t you spending time with your family?” Sheila asked.

“Great ice-breaker, mum,” James muttered.

“Um, we don’t really get on,” Alastair replied awkwardly, smiling slightly nervously.

“Is it because you’re a homosexual?” she asked, completely innocently.

James spluttered, nearly spitting his wine. “Mum!”

Alastair’s smile remained on his face despite the rest of his features taking up the emotion of surprise. “Uh,” he started out in a high-pitch, “no, that’s not it.”

Thankfully the conversation devolved away from Alastair’s family history and once they’d finished dinner the atmosphere was far more comfortable. They cleared up the table and sat in the living room, not paying much attention to the television, the Queen’s speech just beginning.

“Not interested in what the royals have to say?” James asked. “You seem like the type.”

“No. I’m a republican.”

“Oh, okay.”

One of the Timothy Dalton James Bond films came on next, although no one in the room really paid much attention, Sheila reading the paper and James and Alastair settling into a slight doze. It was the least on edge Alastair had felt in a long time. An open fire crackled and the afternoon light seeped in through a crack in the curtains, and as James drifted off on his shoulder he found himself thinking that this was something he could get used to.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the deer story in this is actually a true story from the village I live in personally. 
> 
> I do actually have a happy ending for this (although it is a way off), don't worry everyone. I'm keeping it light because this ship is angsty as dicks.
> 
> Also, thank you so much to actualbird on tumblr because she put this on a fic rec list for percilot? That's amazing. Thank you so much!

_31 st December 1998_

The last week was a slow one. Around Christmas it always was, which implied that many threats were either festive or taking advantage of a winding down country. Or possibly, like James, they had come to the conclusion that the days after Christmas day up until New Year were essentially a void where nothing happened whatsoever and should be removed from the calendar. Few assignments were given to any agent and neither James nor Alastair were given one. There was paperwork, but little that required so much as coming in. On the evening of New Years’ Eve however, Merlin called many of the staff and agents to a meeting.

Alastair had already arrived by the time James did and he took the seat next to him. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No,” Alastair replied shortly.

“I hope he’s going to do a performance. Given in to the urges,” James said quietly over the soft buzz of conversation in the room.

Alastair looked at him, eyebrows knitted together. “What, like a musical?”

“Yeah. Bit of Cats, something like that. Or maybe a talent show,” James added.

He smothered a smile. “What are Merlin’s talents? Other than computers and fulfilling every Scottish stereotype I can think of.”

James thought for a moment. “His cello is wonderful. And he’s good with children.”

“Really? I wouldn’t peg him as the type,” Alastair replied.

“Who would you peg as the type?”

“You.”

He laughed slightly. “You’re a decent judge of character.”

“Hm?” he responded.

“I do like kids.”

Alastair grimaced slightly. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “They seem fun.”

“Fun? All they do is destroy your emotional well-being, create boundaries between you and your friends and use up all your money. They’re like alcoholism.”

“I think that’s a tad unfair, Alastair.”

“Couldn’t you just get another dog?” Alastair asked.

James sighed. “That’s not quite the same as a child, dear.”

“Or sponsor a panda.”

Before a reply came Merlin entered and stood at the front of the room. The room quickly hushed.

“Right, I’m not going to do any introductions as I’m fairly sure you’re familiar with the idea,” he spoke loudly and clearly. “Most of you have probably heard by now of the Millennium Bug,” a ripple of agreement spread through the room. “Now, I want you all to know that there is very little to worry about. Our systems are completely ready for the situation and the government is working with the rest of the world to ready all other systems. Planes will not be dropping out of the sky, nor will there be an apocalypse style scenario arising. Most of the issues are based around file errors and bank details and there is a very slim chance they will not be fixed before the year ends. We don’t want anyone to lose focus and it is likely some of you will be working on this in the coming months,” and with that, Merlin took his leave rather anticlimactically. No musical number or cello solo. Not even any juggling. A sore disappointment.

“That was a bit overdramatic. Couldn’t we get that in an email?” Alastair muttered.

James looked at his watch. “It’s half past ten. We’re not going to get home soon. Most of the roads are closed now.”

Alastair looked vaguely exasperated, but before he could express that another agent approached them. Harry.

“A few of us are off to the pub, seeing as we won’t be getting home and there’s no point going to the river to see the fireworks now it’s so late. Will you be coming?” he asked good-naturedly.

“Sure,” James said happily, before glancing at Alastair and noticing the slight look of distaste on his face.

“Come on, Alastair,” Harry said, “I’ll buy you drinks.”

Alastair looked slightly torn before giving in. “Fine, alright.”

*

Everyone, it seemed, had the same idea about the pub. The local establishment was very much full and the Kingsman group forced their way through the crowd to the bar. Thankfully the barman was fairly efficient and as soon as they had their pints they moved to a less populated corner.

Merlin looked vaguely annoyed by the situation, having been dragged out by Harry.

“Why did you have to call a meeting for what amounted to about two minutes of speech, Merlin?” James asked.

“Well James, some people don’t have an email or look at it often enough for it to be worth it. I’m not calling everyone to tell them and I’m not going to waste paper printing you all newsletters. We tried that once and they all ended up in the bin.”

James seemed to be satisfied with the answer, quickly moving on to a completely different subject. “Do you think we can get any chips?” he asked, shouting over the noise of the drunken pub-goers and the music playing from the television.

“Wouldn’t they have stopped cooking by now?” Alastair replied. James looked slightly disheartened. “You could always ask one of the new guys to go to the chippy if you’re that desperate.”

Alastair hadn’t really meant it as a proper suggestion, but James took it to heart and pushed through to one of the new employees who had been pulled along by the group, handing him a tenner with the instructions of getting them all chips.

“I don’t think we pay people enough,” Alastair said when James returned.

“I told him to keep the change,” James replied.

“Wow,” Alastair said in mock amazement. “You are truly an ambassador of good will.”

James smirked, “You know it.”

The group stood there for a while, drinking their pints absentmindedly as people told numerous far-fetched tales Alastair wasn’t even sure happened. James was enjoying himself, Alastair was more keeping up the façade of the such.

“Oh!” James exclaimed. “Did I ever tell you about the village tape worm epidemic?”

A chorus of ‘no’ launched James into the story, although Alastair decided before it even began that he would rather avoid accounts of any parasitic organisms.

“So when I was growing up, we lived in this countryside village. My mum still does,” he took another sip of his drink. “Anyway, at the top of it there’s this quite busy road that deer cross and inevitably many get hit by cars. One evening, this big buck was hit by a van and the guy just kept going. So Tim - great guy – went up to put it out of its misery,” he mimed the action by making a cutting gesture at his throat. “You know where he dragged its body? The bloody pub. They cooked it up, obviously, not going to waste that. Then a bunch of people ate it.”

“Why?” Alastair blurted.

James shrugged. “Hungry, I suppose. Strange sense of competitiveness and success at killing and eating something. But yeah, apparently it didn’t taste very nice."

"God, where are you from? The middle ages?" Alastair asked incredulously.

“Few weeks later, bunch of people got ill. Turns out it was carrying tape worm and a whole bunch of people just got them.”

“I suppose that’s why you don’t eat road kill,” Harry replied.

“Me personally? I wouldn’t eat road kill either way, tape worm or not,” James replied.

Alastair huffed. “You know, that surprises me.”

James looked offended. “Why is that surprising to you?”

“The places we’ve been to eat probably just patrol the nearest road for free meat,” Alastair replied.

“That’s why they’re always on motorways,” Harry added.

James continued his affronted appearance. “How dare you bad mouth our tradition of shit service station food, Alastair. I’m disappointed,” he thought for a moment. “Anyway, there aren’t many animals on motorways.”

“Yes, because Restbite cooks them all,” Alastair answered.

Before the argument could continue, the man with the chips returned. He lay them out on the table proudly and the rest of the cluster swooped to grab them. Alastair broke away from the group and turned to look at the television on the wall. The publican had apparently switched the channel from naff music to BBC over the last few minutes. It was 11:56.

It was sort of a sobering idea, Alastair thought. In four minutes, less than four minutes even, the year would be over. And what had he achieved? For the first time in a long time, he’d be starting the year in a good place. He’d got a job, a damn good one too, and was apparently set for life. He’d also found James, who he was both intensely annoyed by and extremely fond of. Whether it was the whole drugged up escapade, the movie nights or even listening to the other man complain about EastEnders (which had in fact happened earlier that evening, with Alastair getting a right earful from James about how Tiffany Mitchell did not deserve to die), the other man was the first person in a long time he enjoyed spending time with and who he _didn’t_ want to strangle after spending more than an hour in their company.

In one year, where would he be?

As the countdown drew near, the noise at the bar lulled to a soft hum. James brushed his shoulder as he moved to stand next to Alastair. He offered a small smile in greeting, and Alastair smiled back. As the clock hit 11:59:50, the crowd, both onscreen and inside, begun counting down. The camera zoomed onto the Big Ben clock face, and as the counting reached zero, the first bong rang out to an almighty cheer. As they drew on the people quietened, fireworks punctuating every bell. James reached his arm around Alastair’s shoulder and pulled him closer momentarily, shaking him happily.

“Happy new year!” he said to him.

“Happy new year,” Alastair replied contentedly.

They watched the fireworks play out on the screen quietly, standing still, Alastair with James’ arm loosely round his shoulders.

As Auld Lang Syne began, James removed his arm and reached for Alastair’s hand, linking arms with him and the stranger next to him. They all swayed softly with the bagpipes coming from the broadcast.

_“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind,_ _Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days of auld lang syne.”_


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright lads, bit of homophobia in this chapter. 
> 
> I was in Wales this week but shouldn't be doing anything much in the next few weeks so should be updating more often. I haven't edited this one much so am a bit worried about mistakes. Please correct me if something's wrong.

_2 nd January 1999_

Alastair never enjoyed the second day of a new year. He rarely enjoyed many days after that, in fact. The first day was always a bit of a novelty, kind of dull with some Christmas telly just finishing. One would wake up with a hangover and sleep the rest away. After that, it was just going back to the long drawl of everyday life.

At work, not a great deal was happening. Kingsman were only brought in for particularly high brow matters. Alastair had never liked the system – Merlin would keep tabs on everything and then Arthur would decide when things would need intervention or whether they could simply leave the situation to MI5 or MI6 or whatever the hell it was nowadays.

Kingsman itself had started a new year of training up the back-up teams, which meant a bunch of kids barely out of puberty wandering about the hallways. Somehow they always managed to find the most pompous bunch of young people Alastair had ever seen, all with that perpetual look of having smelt something bad while simultaneously having a broom handle up their arse plastered to their pasty white faces.

It was to be expected, Alastair supposed. In an organisation that is, typically, made up of white elitist males, of course nearly everyone being hired was also a white elitist male. He also figured that when he nominated a candidate (as his choice for Ector was not his choice due to a long-running trend of new agents not nominating their own candidate to begin with and therefore relying on a more traditional member to make decisions like that for them), they would not follow that trend. He liked to think of himself as more progressive than the rest of the organisation.

Supervising training sessions was a piece of piss. It was just watching the session out of the corner of your eye while reading the paper. It was like how one would look after a bunch of three year olds at a playgroup, but less hands-on and with less shit. Normally they’d give the task to someone who wasn’t an agent themselves, usually another member of the back-up squad, but seeing as he hadn’t had much to do recently, Alastair requested sitting in. It was an opportunity for a good read of the paper and came with the possibility that it would satisfy Alastair’s secret pleasure of gossip through eavesdropping.

“Who’s that guy sitting in on us today? Doesn’t seem like the usual type,” someone said in hushed tones.

“Don’t know,” another voice said, “I saw him in the pub on New Year’s. Getting a bit,” there was a pause, “cosy with this other guy.”

Alastair continued staring at his paper, although had stopped reading the less than interesting article on the European economy, taking to staring intensely at a particularly unflattering image of Tony Blair.

“Come on Nathan, come off it. It’s nearly the twenty-first century,” the first voice said.

The other man huffed. “Bloody state we’re in too. Can’t believe something like Kingsman employs queers.”

Alastair clenched the paper, continuing looking at the same picture as if he was going to burn holes into Tony Blair’s face with the glare.

The former voice huffed. “Nathan, come on-”

“You know, they need to know their place,” Nathan hissed, “and it is not at Kingsman.”

“Nate-”

Alastair sighed in exasperation, folding the newspaper up and walking casually over to them. The first guy was short and bulky with dark skin and glasses, eyes apologetic. Nathan was lean, taller - around the same height as Alastair – with a tan complexion and scraggly blond hair that made him look like his head had been dragged through a bush backwards and then washed in a toilet. Typical public school boy.

Alastair stared him in the eyes. “You know, Mr. Turner,” he recalled from the boy’s file, “it’s not up to you to decide who Kingsman employs. That job goes to someone who actually works here.”

Nathan stared him up and down, seemingly sizing him up, taking in his stature and tailored suit. “I don’t think an _accountant_ is in a position to criticise me.”

“Don’t make me do something you’ll regret, Mr. Turner,” Alastair said softly, resisting the urge to laugh at the other man’s overblown sense of self-worth. His level of 'twat' was almost on par with Piers Morgan, although, Alastair thought, none could truly be on level with Piers Morgan’s level of 'twat'.

Nathan laughed, glancing at the other man, who responded with nothing but a concerned look, before dropping to a completely serious look, staring Alastair right in the eyes. “What could you possibly do?”

“Would you like to take this to the side?” he asked.

“No, I’m alright here, thank you,” Nathan smirked.

The other man tugged at Nathan’s shoulder. “Nathan, what if he’s trained or something?” he whispered.

“Daniel, Kingsman aren’t training shirt-lifters. Get out the way,” Nathan whispered back and Daniel backed off.

Alastair waited for Nathan to make the first move. Nathan threw a punch and Alastair blocked it. He felt it would achieve more to go on the defence rather than the attack, given the situation. Nathan stared at his fist with confusion, as if the limb was a new addition to his body. He threw more punches, Alastair blocking every one. His face grew comically red, a similar shade to that of a particularly ripe strawberry. When he finally got a fist past Alastair’s blocks, it was swiftly grabbed by the wrist and halted, Alastair twisting his arm back uncomfortably.

“You want to stop?” Alastair asked calmly, not at all out of breath.

Nathan all but growled, “No way. I’m not being beaten by some jumped up fairy.”

“Suit yourself,” Alastair murmured, dropping the man’s arm. “Come on, I’ll give you an advantage,” he held his arm forward.

Nathan looked unsure for a moment, before seizing the opportunity and pulling Alastair into the same position he himself had been in a few moments ago, but this time pulling back more. Alastair grabbed his own arm with his free hand, bracing it, before bending swiftly over and flipping the other man over his body and onto the floor with a slam.

“Are you done?” Alastair asked, exasperated.

There was no reply from the man on the floor, merely a glare. His next move was predictable, yet Alastair let it happen. Nathan kicked out his legs and knocked the other man off balance, moving quickly to hold him down, hands at his neck tightly.

“You know, Mr. Turner,” Alastair strained. “You really need to position yourself better,” and with that he brought his knee up to slam in between the other man’s legs. Nathan rolled off him with a groan. He stood up and stared down at him. “Go home. You’re not coming back.”

Nathan clenched his jaw, pushing out, “What authority do you have to do that?”

“I’m Agent Percival. Now fuck off."

*

He walked into the control room, bringing Merlin a coffee. He put it in front of the man at the computer.

“Oh no,” Merlin said, looking at the mug.

“What?”

Merlin sighed. “What have you done?”

“What makes you think I’ve done anything?” Alastair asked, dragging a chair up. Merlin stared at him. “Fine. I fired Nathan Turner.”

“You what? You don’t have-” Merlin started.

“-The jurisdiction, yeah, I know. I need you to fire him.”

Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

“He’s a knob,” Alastair said. Merlin continued staring, looking for some elaboration. “He called me a queer. Said I should know my place.”

Merlin's expression closed and he turned back to the screen. “Then he’s gone.”

“Thanks, Merlin,” he moved his chair back to its original location.

*

As soon as Alastair got home, he opened his fridge to find nothing but a block of some half mouldy cheese, a sausage and three bottles of beer. He closed the door with a sigh, returning to the couch and switching on the TV, feeling unusually alone. He pulled his phone out and dialled the one person who would be willing to spend a Saturday evening with him.

“James?” he greeted as James picked up the phone.

 _“Al? Is something wrong?”_ He sounded worried.

“No, just wondered if you wanted to get a takeaway or something.”

_“Oh, yeah, sure. What do you want?”_

“I don’t know. Chinese?” he suggested.

_“Sure. I know a place. I’ll see you in ten.”_

Sure enough, James knocked on his door – roughly – ten minutes later. Alastair opened the door to a gust of cold air and the sight of James with a big grin on his face, wrapped up in a large coat and a scarf. Alastair grabbed his coat and left the house and they began walking down the street.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Some place that just opened up. It’s not too far away.” James linked their arms as they walked.

“I hope it’s not like your usual cuisine choices,” Alastair said.

“What do you mean? I’m showing you the world, Al,” James replied.

“I would prefer my world included more places above two stars. I don’t think you understand that I don’t want hepatitis.”

“It’s a life experience, dear. Live a little,” James said.

The place wasn’t that bad. Sure, the hygiene standards were sub-par and Alastair was sure the only people in there were people who had made bad life choices, but it wasn’t that bad. They got their food and took it back to Alastair’s. Settling down in front of the television, they ate the food. James threw something to Madeline.

“James, please don’t feed my dog spring rolls,” Alastair said.

“She likes them,” James answered. “Why did you want me over?”

Alastair shrugged.

James leaned forward. “Something’s bothering you.”

“I beat up a trainee. And fired them.” Alastair replied.

“Right. What?”

Alastair rubbed his face with his hands. “I was sitting in on training. Some,” he paused, looking for the right word, “dick, was talking about me. About us. He said Kingsman shouldn’t be employing queers.”

“But we’re not…” James trailed off.

“I know! So I challenged him to a fight or whatever. We did that. Fight, I mean. Then I fired him." He stopped for a moment. "Well, I said he was fired and then got Merlin to sort it out,” Alastair said.

“Well,” James said, “good for you.”

Alastair smiled softly back at him. “Thank you.”


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter one again this chapter, I'm afraid. I also really don't like this one but I needed to bring in the background. So some background, some seriousness, little foreshadowing. The horoscope thing had that potential but no I did not do that. And for those who don't know, the Piers Gaveston society is real and known for those sort of parties.
> 
> Also thank you for the lovely comments! I know I don't reply to every one but I appreciate them all. They mean a lot to me.

_22 nd March 1999_

Alastair was sure Merlin was out to get him. James had broken his leg (not even on a mission or anything, just a rather dramatic and unfortunate tumble down the stairs) and was laid up for a few weeks, and as nobody wanted to deal with a restless and huffy James Spencer, the task had been allocated to Alastair. Week and a half paid leave and a shitload of paperwork. Any other circumstance, he would have been overjoyed at the situation, but a bored James was about as tolerable as a bluebottle with PMT and not someone Alastair would like to be spending time with. However much he liked James, the man was damn annoying.

“Do you want to know your horoscope?” James called from his sofa, leg stretched out over it and Oliver lying on the floor beside it.

Alastair rolled his eyes, standing by the stove in the adjacent room, stirring a rather unappetising looking saucepan of green soup. “Not really.”

James shook his newspaper. “Cancer. You may be feeling tired or run down with the repetitive nature of daily life, but great things are just behind the corner. Today is not a good day to talk to your boss about a raise. A child is important in your life. Be sure any conflict is resolved swiftly.”

Alastair sighed. “James, I really don’t believe that celestial bodies have any effect on my life. Astrology is just a load of made up bullshit about how all Scorpios should wear blue today because it’s their lucky colour and they’ll find two quid in a public toilet.”

James looked at him in mock shock. “You mean it isn’t completely scientifically proven interpretations written by some specially trained people who are very happy in their jobs and aren’t bored sick?”

Alastair sighed again. “Weren’t you going to watch Pride and Prejudice today?”

“Yeah,” James put his paper down, “but I want you to watch it with me.”

"Christ, why?” he all but groaned.

“You’d enjoy it. You like Jane Austen,” James replied.

“Yes, but I never think adaptations of classics ever go well. It’s a known fact.”

“Breakfast At Tiffany’s was good.”

“Breakfast At Tiffany’s isn’t a proper classic,” Alastair turned away from his cooking to face James through the door frame wielding a spoon. “And while a good film, it wasn’t good as an adaptation anyway. Holly was less ‘together’ in the book, completely out of character in the film. Peppard had the emotional depth of a slab of wood and the ending was a total cop-out,” Alastair replied. “Anyway, you wouldn’t know as none of your favourite books are classics.”

James scoffed. “They are!”

Alastair gave him an exasperated look. “For the last time James, Bridget Jones’s Diary is not a classic.”

“It’s a modern classic.”

Alastair sighed yet another time. “It’s bloody well not. It came out, what, two years ago?”

“Three,” he corrected.

“Three years ago. That’s not enough to qualify as a modern classic. And it’s crap anyway!” Alastair said as he poured the soup from a saucepan to a bowl.

James huffed. “It’s a feminist masterpiece,” he paused, reverting back to the original subject. “Come on, you haven’t even seen Pride and Prejudice. It’s got good reviews and Colin Firth. The two things that indicate something is of a high quality.”

Alastair brought the bowl of soup in on a tray, handing it to James. “Fine,” he sat down.

They watched it. It wasn’t _that_ bad – at least at first - but out of pride Alastair feigned disgust whenever he saw James look at him. They watched the whole series in that one afternoon and by the time it had finished they had both grown bored of it. Alastair clapped his hands together and stood to take out the video.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked the man on the sofa.

“I don’t know,” James shrugged. “Entertain me. Sing a song. Dance. Sock puppet theatre. Something.”

“What? No,” Alastair replied. “I’m not doing anything.”

James looked disappointed. “Why?”

“I don’t want to. And I’m not going to give you blackmail material.”

“Okay,” James crossed his arms. “Talk to me then.”

Alastair frowned. “About what?”

“Family.”

“James,” Alastair warned.

James groaned. “Please Al. I don’t know anything about them! You know stuff about my family.”

“I’ve met your mother, that’s it. I don’t know anything else,” Alastair began pacing.

“Then I’ll tell you about my family and you tell me about yours,” James suggested. “Please? For the patient?”

Alastair gave in after a few seconds of James' puppy-dog eyes. “Sure, yeah. Fine.”

“Sit with me.”

“How? That sofa isn’t that big. Your leg’s there.”

James stared at him. “I’ll put it on you.”

Alastair for one did not know why he agreed to it, but he took his seat and the end of the couch, James’ leg placed gingerly over his lap. He stared at the other man expectantly.

James cleared his throat. “As you may not know, my mother is Irish.”

“Of course I knew that, James. I’ve met her,” Alastair replied with a long-suffering look.

He held up a finger. “Shh, I'm setting the scene. Anyway, she met my dad in Ballymoney in the late fifties. He was from Hull. Originally.”

“Glamorous,” Alastair added.

James nodded. “He moved there for work. Met on a boat. He ate her coleslaw by accident. All very romantic. They got married a few years later, I think mid-sixties. Then a few years after the Troubles started, they moved to England. Not long after, I came into existence. Dad had quite a bit of money by then and it was just me so we did alright. Sent me to private.”

“Eton?” Alastair asked.

James grimaced. “God no, we didn’t have that kind of money. Nor would I have enjoyed Eton. They train you to be politicians and I wouldn’t have wanted to end up a liar or a twat.”

“Fair enough.”

“Dad died when I was sixteen, so I started going to the local so I could get time to work.”

“Where did you go to university, presuming you did?”

“Oxford. Corpus. I did history. I was in the Piers Gaveston Society,” he replied.

Alastair looked surprised. “What, the one with the drugs and orgies?”

James smirked. “Now that would be telling,” he moved on swiftly. “After uni, I was working in advertising for a while. Then I was suggested for Kingsman by Bedivere. Trained, got the job. Now we’re here.”

Alastair nodded. “Now we’re here.”

“You next,” James replied.

“I was at King’s College Cambridge. English Language.”

“Were you in any decadent society?”

“God no. I was in Footlights,” he said.

James laughed. “I knew you were a natural born actor. But come on, you weren’t born aged eighteen and in university.”

“No,” Alastair sighed. “I’m from Cheltenham. Didn’t move until I finished school and I was glad to go. Mum died when I was seven. Got two siblings, brother and sister. David is four years older than me, Ellen three years younger.”

"Middle-child. Explains a lot," James joked. “What are they doing now?” 

Alastair shrugged, not really looking at James. “Don’t know. Haven’t spoken to them since I was eighteen. After dad died my brother cut ties with me. And because he was my sister’s legal guardian, I didn’t see her either.”

“Why did he cut ties?”

“Numerous things, I’d say. Dad died in the car crash I lost my leg in. David was always jealous of me too. I did better than him in most things. He was a bit old-fashioned, too,” he paused, not elaborating. “Plus I broke his Rubik’s cube and I don’t think he ever forgave me,” he joked half-heartedly.

 “What about your sister?”

“I loved my sister. Still do. We got on well. After mum died, dad was at work a lot and my brother wasn’t really the caring sort so I practically raised her,” he smiled briefly. “I wish I knew she was okay.”

James sat up straighter. “Why don’t you use Kingsman to find her?”

“That would be an abuse of power,” Alastair replied.

“It wouldn’t! Lost family members don't fall under abuse of power. If you were looking for your third-year girlfriend’s place of work or for Enya’s home address, that would be an abuse of power. This is not.”

“Who would look for Enya’s home address?” Alastair questioned, diverting the subject.

“I don’t know. Wouldn’t put it past Harry.”

“Harry likes Enya?” Alastair deadpanned.

“Probably! His tastes are varied and complete. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is you should find your sister.”

Alastair looked unsure. “I don’t know.”

“You’re doing it. Sometime in the future. I’ll make you,” James said. “Now, give me a hug.”

Alastair reeled back. “Why?”

James opened his arms. “I feel like I’ve dragged up some bad memories and you need it. Now, hug me, dickhead.”

He awkwardly leaned forward, pulling Alastair into a tight grip. It wasn’t long until the other man returned the gesture.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: In no way alleging that Philip, or indeed any member of the royal family, has nudes. Although we all know what Harry's like.
> 
> Bit longer again, thankfully. This'll roll onto the next chapter. Had a bit of a time jump because I need to tie in some other things happening this year and needed a broken leg to heal. Again, don't really have much time to edit nowadays so there may be a few slip ups. Hopefully not, but please tell me if there are.
> 
> Also might be a while until the next update, sorry, I'm a tad busy in coming days.

_20 th August 1999_

James entered Alastair’s office looking awfully smug. Painfully so. He bounced into the room, before calming himself and inspecting Alastair’s bookshelf, glancing over to the man at the desk occasionally. Not willing to give him the satisfaction, Alastair continued writing. It was only when James began to fiddle with the order of the books that he gave in with a sigh.

“What is it?” he asked apprehensively.

James turned to look at him, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. “Nothing, why would you ask?”

Alastair just stared at him. “James, I know when you’ve come to boast about something. Tell me.”

“I’ve been assigned to a _very_ high profile mission,” James replied.

Alastair raised an eyebrow. “No need to be overdramatic. Spit it out.”

“I have been chosen by her majesty herself to look into a personal image leak,” James said.

“Actually by the Queen?” Alastair asked disbelievingly.

“Well,” James drew out, “no, but as good as.”

Alastair let that one slip. “Personal images?”

“Incriminating. Private." He hushed his voice, "Naked.”

If he had been drinking, he would have spluttered. “The Queen has nude images of herself?”

“No,” James replied. “But Philip has.”

“Oh,” Alastair nodded. “You know what, that doesn’t surprise me as much as it should.”

“I don’t think it would surprise the public. If say, one of them dressed up as a Nazi at a fancy dress party, that might. But naked pictures of an old man?” James shook his head. “Very few people would want to see that so it wouldn’t make a good story.”

“Can’t the government stop it?” Alastair asked.

James gave a vague hand gesture. “They’ve issued a D-notice. But it’s voluntary. They can’t do much nowadays without causing uproar about censorship and freedom of the press. Plus it doesn’t apply to those outside the country.”

He nodded. “Where are you going for this?”

James shrugged. “Merlin told me it was a hacktivist working for a small organised crime ring. He has the hacker traced and tapped it. We know there’s a meeting coming up on the 30th. Assignment is infiltrate the group, get the location where they’ll gather and take them all down and into custody.”

“You’ve got ten days to infiltrate a gang?”

“I’ve been set up as the guy who’ll buy the images. We offer the most money and we’re in on that meeting. I’ll probably manage that when I meet one of them tonight. Then we just need to work out what the other competitors are offering,” James said. “We’ve been given a lot of funding for this. We can go as high as we want,” he added. “Will you watch Oliver for me? Chances are I won’t be back for a few days.”

“Sure,” Alastair replied. “Haven’t got anything on that’ll mean I don’t finish up by the end of the day.”

“You can eat what you want. Bring Madeline and stay over, if you want. I’ll be out of town. They’re based in Liverpool.”

Alastair nodded. “Yeah, okay. When are you off?”

James looked at his watch. “About ten minutes, so I’ll be off now. I’ll see you soon.”

*

James wasn’t one to be overly confident ahead of assignments - although he frequently came across as such - but this one seemed relatively simple. The gang itself was relatively young, members all below thirty and inexperienced. There was no doubt in his mind that they were dangerous people (more youthful gang members generally were more violent), but he was fairly sure there was less of a chance of them doubting their associates. Sure, they’d be cautious, more than most, hence the usual precautions of no obvious weapons, but they’d be less watchful of spies or otherwise dodgy people.

So as he walked into a darkened multi-storey car park outside a lousy shopping precinct to wait beside a crappy silver Citroen, he didn’t expect much. Which was why he was, if only momentarily, surprised by the twenty-one year old who appeared out of god knows where and pressed him against the car, gun to the back of his head. James knew he would be able get out of the situation easily, but his cover would not.

“E-easy,” he said in a shaky voice, playing the part. It had always been one of the parts James had enjoyed most about the job. The performance. The drama. The free tickets to the theatre that he'd wrangled out of those employed to teach Kingsmen acting. It was everything a rather metrosexual man could want.

The hand holding the gun to the back of his head was not a steady one, rather one indicating either someone rather nervous or someone who chose not to eat slowly digested carbohydrates for breakfast. James felt it was the former. The boy smelt of porridge.

“Tell me your name,” he spoke loudly, thick Scouse accent, with an unsteadiness in his voice that suggested his voice was still breaking. Late bloomer, James supposed.

James gulped, something he had never done a situation like this himself. “Marcus Evans. I’m the editor for-”

“The Copper, I know. I’ve never heard of it,” he said. James thought he was doing quite a good job of sounding confident, although his body language betrayed him.

“It’s mostly US-based,” James replied, laughing shakily. “Bloody Yanks, love a scandal, eh?”

The boy gave no response and began searching him, hands patting him down, gun moving from the back of his head. He grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him round to face him, gun angled at his face. The kid was scrawny, eyes deep set with dark circles under his eyes, hood covering most of his head. James straightened up, brushing his suit.

“Where’s the money?” the man asked.

“Accessible. I’m not paying up without the images,” James replied. “I need to know you can deliver.”

The boy frowned. “How much will you be willing to pay?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “My benefactors are very negotiable. But we want the images and all back-ups.”

“No,” the boy replied. “Why?”

“I need to know we’ll be the ones publishing first. And the ones who will get the credit,” James responded. “If I get that, we are willing to pay a lot. Cash.” He offered his hand.

His hand - and the gun - fell to his side. “You have one chance. No haggling. One offer and we’re done,” he replied, shaking James’ hand.

James nodded. “One offer and we’re done.”

*

_21 st August 1999_

James woke in his hotel room to a phone call. He reached from the bed over to the small set of drawers beside him and grabbed his phone weakly, answering it.

 _“James, put your bloody earpiece in. I know you don’t like it but I can’t just give you a call every twenty minutes like a clingy girlfriend, I need to work with you,”_ came Merlin’s gruff voice from the other end.

James groaned, looking at the time. Ten o’clock. “I’m still in bed.”

_“Still in bed? What are you, a teenager? You need to be up and out in ten minutes.”_

“I’ll be fine,” James replied groggily, rubbing his eyes.

 _“See that you are,”_ Merlin replied before hanging up.

James lay there for another five minutes.

*

He stood by the side of the road outside the hotel, rain slamming onto the ground hard. The air was thick, humid, and James took a long sip of the subpar coffee he had bought from the café inside. He switched his earpiece on.

 _“About bloody time, Lancelot,”_ Merlin grumbled.

“I like my beauty sleep,” James replied.

 _“You’d never know,”_ Merlin responded. _“Right, one of the major competitors is staying at Premier Inn. It’s about a twenty minute walk.”_

James frowned as he began making his way down the street. “Couldn’t afford anything better?”

 _“I don’t know, nor do I care. His name is David Jameson and he’s with the Sun,”_ Merlin said.

“Ah. Should’ve known they’d want it. I’m sure Harry will be disappointed when he can no longer add ‘God Save The Wein’ to his wall,” he replied.

 _“I don’t think he’ll care,”_ Merlin responded.   _“Your aim is simple. Find out how much they’re willing to offer.”_

James nodded to no one in particular and continued walking.

 _“How are you and Percival?”_ Merlin’s voice returned about three minutes later.

James scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. “Why are you grouping us together? We’re not a couple.”

Merlin sighed. _“Yeah, but you know. At the start you wanted to be.”_

“At the start," he quoted, "I wanted to sleep with him. Not enter a relationship,” James corrected.

_“And what about now?”_

James slowed his walk for a moment, pausing before shaking his head and carrying on. “No. He’s not interested.”

Merlin made some non-specific noise. _“Wouldn’t be so sure.”_

“Merlin, he thinks I’m a knob.”

_“Everyone thinks you’re a knob, James. Even your mother.”_

James thought for a moment. “While that is true, I’m not going to get my hopes up. He likes me, he doesn’t like-like me.”

 _“Like-like you? Are you ten?”_ Merlin scoffed. _“If you asked him, I bet he would.”_

“He wouldn’t,” James replied. “I see the hotel. What room’s he in?”

_“126, floor two. He’s still in there, don’t break in. Find another way.”_

James groaned and continued inside. He smiled at the woman at reception, who simply responded with a disapproving look over her glasses. “She seems like your type, Merlin,” he said quietly as he rounded a corner.

Merlin’s response was simply a long sigh.

James got in the lift, some generic tune playing as he waited. The lift drew to a halt before reaching the second floor. “Bloody typical. Merlin, the lift’s broken.”

_“We don’t have time for this, Lancelot. Get out.”_

“Like, pull a Hannibal Lecter?” James said, looking up at the ceiling.

 _“What? Hannibal Lecter wasn’t even on the lift, he was-”_ Merlin cut himself off. _“Just crack on, will you?”_

“Aye aye, sir,” James murmured before pulling the hatch on the ceiling open. He jumped up and hoisted himself onto the top of the carriage. The shaft was dark and smelt damp. James wrinkled his nose.

_“Now climb the shaft.”_

“I’ll climb your shaft,” James replied.

 _“Lancelot,”_ Merlin scolded.

“It wasn't my best, I admit,” James said, beginning to climb the metal framework. As he reached the doors, he tried to push them apart. “I can’t open the door.”

 _“On it,”_ came Merlin’s response, and sure enough, a few minutes later, the doors opened.

James clambered out and brushed himself off, straightening his suit. He walked down the corridor, counting the room numbers before he reached 126. He grabbed a glass off a passing cleaning lady’s trolley, pressing it to the door and listening in. All he could get were muffled voices, non-distinct words making little sense. He reached into his pocket to retrieve a sound amplifier.

 _“Lancelot, you can use a sound amplifier in a corridor. The risk of it being found is too high,”_ Merlin said.

James groaned slightly. “Do you have a ventilation plan?”

There was a pause, presumably Merlin finding a map. _“There should be a way in on the ceiling just around the corner.”_

James walked to it. “You know Merlin, ceilings aren’t built to be climbed through. That's why they're above us.” He jumped up once to knock the vent open, then a second time to grab the rim and pull himself up. “You know, I’m glad I took those pole dancing classes. Great for upper body strength and manoeuvrability.” He shut the vent.

 _“I know what you’re going to ask, and it’s no.”_ Merlin said.

“You don’t know what I’m going to ask,” James replied, crawling along what reminded him of one of those play tunnels for children. Except metal.

_“You were going to ask if you could put it on expenses or if Kingsman could start offering pole dancing as training. The answer to both questions is no.”_

“We’ve been working together for too long,” James responded.

_“Believe me, I know.”_

“Rude,” James said. “Okay, there’s a sort of junction. Where am I going?”

_“Right. It’ll take you right above 126.”_

James turned, before reaching a vent and looking down into the room. Inside was a balding man, looking simultaneously pompous and flustered. He was pale, like he hadn’t seen the sun since 1973, and wore a suit that was probably from Asda. He was staring at his phone expectantly, sitting on the bed. James retrieved his sound amplifier.

“This whole thing makes me feel like a burglar. You know that penguin in The Wrong Trousers?”

_“Yeah?”_

“Like that.”

_“Shut up.”_

James sighed and lay down in the vent – it was too small to sit – and continued staring at an aerial view of a bald patch. When the man’s phone finally sounded, it didn’t get through the first ring before it was at his ear.

“Hello?” he answered, confident voice not matching his sweaty and shaky persona.

Although dull, James picked up the response. _“Have you met with them?”_

“Yes. Well, no, but I’ve met one of them for the location of the meeting,” David replied. “Although he wants to know how much we’ll be paying. I told him ten grand.”

 _“Mm, that’s alright. We can go up or down a bit also, if needed,”_ the voice replied.

He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, the thing with that is that they’re only taking one offer.”

_“One offer? That’s a bit stupid. They could get more for it if it was auctioned. I’ll try and work out what others are offering. Pull a few strings. Ciao for now, David.”_

“C-ciao?” the man replied uncertainly.

“That was a brief,” James whispered.

 _“But we got what we needed,”_ Merlin replied. _“We have three others to get through. Probably won’t go as fast. I haven’t got the full details yet so you may have to finish up for today.”_

“Ciao for now, Merlin.”

 


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry about the wait, I've had things on. Anyway, I've done some thinking and I feel that I could do with a break so I'm going to finish this to a certain point that's a good end, then maybe do a series when I have the ideas I had for this more fleshed out. Possibly. Who knows, we'll see. Again, any mistakes please correct me, I'm not great at editing things.

_22 nd August 1999_

James’ rather enjoyable eight hours of sleep were broken by a shriek in his earpiece. He immediately jumped out of his bed, hand slamming into the side of his head in an attempt to quickly remove the offending piece of technology, stumbling as he lost his footing. The squealing cut out and James was very thankful of the silence that replaced it.

 _“Good morning, Lancelot,”_ Merlin’s voice greeted him as he rubbed his head and headed to the bathroom.

“I hate you, Merlin,” he grumbled. “What time do you call this?”

 _“Time for a specially trained Kingsman agent to actually do what we pay him for,”_ Merlin replied.

James left the bathroom to change his shirt, having apparently fallen asleep in his suit. “You don’t even pay me that much. I’ve seen Harry’s pay cheque. Picking favourites is unprofessional.”

Merlin sighed. _“He’s not a favourite, he’s just less hassle. And we let you put way more on expenses. That’s technically illegal.”_

“Lots of things we do are ‘technically’ illegal,” James responded, grabbing everything he needed for the day and leaving the room. “Where today?” he asked as he got into the lift.

_“Another hotel. Further away, bit more upmarket. There’s a car waiting for you outside to take you there.”_

The doors opened with a ding and James strolled across the lobby and outside. A large black car awaited him. “That’s not very inconspicuous.”

 _“It’s so overt, it’s covert,”_ Merlin replied.

James shrugged, getting in the back. “Whatever you say,” he said as the car set off, travelling through the city at what James was sure was above the speed limit.

_“Target is Bernard Cloth, task is same as yesterday, would recommend going through the vents again. I’ll direct you.”_

James sighed. “You know, I can’t think of any reason why people don’t use vents as their main route of travel. They’re truly exhilarating. No back pain at all.”

_“Do you want some cheese with that whine?”_

James fell silent, subconsciously crossing his arms, taking to staring out the window and watching the buildings and the people pass by.

 _“Are you sulking?”_ Merlin sounded vaguely amused.

“No,” James replied shortly. “I’m twenty-six. I don’t sulk.”

Merlin huffed. _“That sounds like something someone who was sulking would say.”_

James decided to let it go as the vehicle pulled up outside a rather fancy looking hotel. He left the car and entered the building, passing quietly past the front desk and into the elevator. He nodded at the man already in the lift.

_“Floor three, room 308. Vent system entrance out the lift, round the corner and just above you. Don’t grunt as much getting up as you did last time.”_

James clenched his jaw to avoid responding. The man glanced at him oddly. Trapped by societal convention. He turned slightly as to angle the camera in his suit to the man present. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. James caught a glimpse of a man at the end of the hall when the man next to him dropped to the ground, blood running from the hole in his head.

 _“What did you do?”_ Merlin exclaimed.

“Nothing!” he replied in equal volume, pressing close on the doors, crouching down next to the man’s body. “Should I put him in the recovery position?”

 _“He’s dead, I don’t think it’d be much use,”_ Merlin replied.

“I could try it anyway,” James said. “Who is he?”

He could hear Merlin typing. _“Jasper Curtis. We’ve seen him around Cloth recently. I would describe him as a bodyguard, but given your tendency to be rather overdramatic, you’d probably call him a henchman,”_ he paused. _“I don’t think that bullet was meant for him. Be careful.”_

James nodded. “What do I do now?”

_“Leave him.”_

“What, just in the lift?”

_“Yes. We’ll send a clean-up crew. Do your job, Lancelot.”_

James stood and opened the doors. He quietly walked to the end of the hallway before the corner.

_“Make sure you don’t get noticed.”_

James waited a good few seconds before rounding the corner, glancing down the corridor. He knocked the vent open, the metal door he had removed clattering to the floor. “Oops.”

 _“Are you on a personal mission to redefine incompetence, James?”_ Merlin asked exasperatedly.

He picked the door up, putting it just inside the vent, and clambered up, making a particular effort to grunt loudly and frequently. Once he was in, he shut the vent and followed Merlin’s instructions to get above the room. He lay down and listened.

“Why did you shoot him?” someone said angrily.

 _“Cloth,”_ Merlin identified.

“I’m sorry! You told me he wouldn’t be back for another half an hour and that we were to expect competition and to take care of it,” the other man, presumably the guy from the hall, replied.

“In what world does ‘take care of’ mean kill, you psycho?” Cloth shouted. “We’re not in the fucking Godfather!”

“I appear to have misjudged the situation. I was trained to ‘take care of things’ my way,” he said.

Cloth made a sort of exasperated and panicked sigh. “Who trained you, the fucking mafia?”

“Look, you could have been clearer,” he said. “Aren’t you expecting a visitor?”

“Yes,” he replied, much calmer than before. “He should be here soon. We’ll be making an offer.”

 _“Bingo,”_ Merlin said.

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Someone opened it with a creak and the sound of footsteps carried through the room. The door locked again.

“This place secure?” a new voice said, distinctively young sounding.

“Should be. Only a few people know we’re here,” Cloth replied.

There was the sound of a zip and some rummaging before he spoke again. “Do you mind if I do this?”

“Do what?”

“Alert us of transmission devices by causing them to emit noise,” he replied.

 _“Bollocks. Lancelot, stay where you are and on guard,”_ Merlin replied, sound of a keyboard faint in the background.

James placed his hand on his gun. He flinched when his earpiece began shrieking, much like it had in the morning as Merlin woke him up. When it stopped, he shook his head in an attempt to rid the ringing from his ears. And then the vent was pulled open beneath him and he crashed to the floor along with a pile of plasterboard from the ceiling.

“Come here often?” he greeted as he stood up.

There was a pause. The three of them stared at him in confusion. He brushed himself off with a grin. The bodyguard drew his gun, but James grabbed his arm, twisting it round and knocking his knee forward, bringing him to the ground. He swiftly delivered a hit with the butt of his own gun and knocked him unconscious.

“Who the fuck are you?” Cloth asked breathlessly. James shot an amnesia dart from his watch and the man collapsed.

The third man, or more specifically _boy_ , seeing as he looked about seventeen, stared at him like a deer in headlights. “Merlin, what should I do with him?”

 _“Knock him out and check his bag,”_ Merlin instructed.

James did so. He emptied the contents onto the bed, sifting through. Money, driver’s license, plasters, some indistinct technology and a Double Decker chocolate bar. James unwrapped the chocolate and took a bite. “Should I take anything?” he asked, mouth full.

_"Take the tech, we could use it.”_

James put the devices in his pockets, before leaving the room, taking one final glance at the mess. He felt sorry for room service.

*

Alastair was never one to sit in on other agents’ assignments, although as he was considered one of the most trustworthy and least ‘quirky’ - as Harry had put it - agents, Merlin had occasionally asked him to reside over some that wouldn’t require much effort on his part if another agent was doing something more drastic. On this particular day, as he had just finished his own latest assignment, Merlin requested he watched Harry’s. That and he was hungover so Merlin didn’t want him in the way much or with an agent who would need his full attention, like James, who was, as they both knew, a bit thick for a man in his line of work.

“Agent Galahad,” he greeted as he sat down at the desk.

 _“Agent Percival,”_ Harry acknowledged in return.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

Judging by the camera footage, Harry was walking through an empty office block _. “Haven’t you read the file?”_

“Um,” Alastair stalled, “I was going to.”

He could hear the smirk in Harry’s voice. _“Slacker. I’m taking out a drug lord with non-identifiable drugs. Hugh Jenkins.”_

He flicked through the folder Merlin had given him to find the man’s face. “You know, if I was a drug lord and called Hugh Jenkins I would change my name. I’d want to sound less like a chartered accountant, if I’m honest.” Alastair replied as Harry entered another room.

_“It’s inconspicuous though. What drug baron’s called Hugh?”_

Alastair nodded. “So, how are things? How’s Mr. Pickle?”

 _“I think he’s on his way out, to be honest. He’s been having some stomach issues and he’s eleven anyway, I wouldn’t be too surprised,”_ Harry replied. _“How’s that greyhound yeti of yours?”_

“Madeline? She’s fine. Gets on well with Oliver, which is good,” Alastair said.

 _“Oliver? Someone on the scene for Agent Percival?”_ Harry asked good-naturedly.

Alastair frowned. “God no, Oliver’s a dog. James’ dog. I’m staying at his this week while he’s not there.”

_“Are you two still just dancing around each other?”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harry sighed. _“There’s so much tension there, Alastair, come on. It’s tangible.”_

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was almost thankful of the presence of a dead body in the next room Harry entered for interrupting the line of conversation. The man was turned on his side, gun in hand, staring blankly ahead. As Harry got closer he identified the man has the drug lord in question. _“What happened to you, Hugh Jenkins?”_ Harry murmured to no one in particular.

“He can’t tell you, he’s dead.”

Harry looked up for a moment, as if he was looking into the camera of a mockumentary-style semi-scripted comedy that hadn’t been released yet. He proceeded to crouch down and check the man’s vital signs. _“He’s definitely dead,”_ Harry said as he turned the body over, revealing an arm with the sleeve rolled up, revealing a needle still embedded in his arm. _“I’d say drug overdose. He’s been here about an hour.”_

“Do you think it was his own doing?” Alastair asked.

 _“Doubt it. He’s got enough enemies. I expect it was competition or one of his dealers,”_ he stood back up. _“Shit. We needed to talk to him. I would bet whoever killed him knew it.”_

“What are you going to do?”

 _“Have a drink. Not much I can do about it here. Once we’ve tracked some of his other dealers we may be able to find out what we need,”_ Harry replied, going back the way he came. _“Fancy a pint?”_

“At three in the afternoon?” Alastair said.

 _“Yeah, go on. We can talk about you and Agent Lancelot,”_ Harry replied.

“In that case, no.”

_“Oh please, don’t make me drink alone at this time. It’d be weird.”_

Alastair sighed, standing up. “Fine. I’ll see you at the usual.”


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for taking so long. I've simply not had the time and have had a severe issue with writer's block. I knew what I wanted to do, but it just wasn't happening. So I followed someone's advice and did something with it I hadn't written out in the plan so I had to alter that a bit. Okay, kind of a warning for minor character death, I suppose. Offscreen. Anyway, same as always, see any issues, tell me. I've been known to screw up dates and spacing. Probably other things as well. 
> 
> Did have fun with one particular part of this, though. Hopefully you guys will like that.

_22 nd August 1999_

Alastair stumbled back into James’ house at around 10:23pm. However much he enjoyed Harry Hart’s company, the man could drink an elephant under the table and was awfully persistent. Harry had managed to squeeze out an admission from Alastair that he did in fact _like_ James much more than he made out and went on to suggest that the other man felt a similar way, which Alastair had dismissed immediately. With a groan he shut the door behind him, before crouching down to greet the two dogs, who promptly knocked him flat on his arse and up against the wall. He pushed them away and pulled himself up, wandering into the kitchen to retrieve something to eat from the fridge. A red light on the phone flashed intermittently and Alastair pushed the button to start the messages as he opened the fridge and rummaged through the various compartments.

 _“You have one new message,”_ the machine said.

Alastair settled on a cheese string.

 _“First new message,”_ it continued.

He began to eat the plastic textured cheese, absentmindedly stroking one of the dog’s heads.

_“Mr. Spencer? This is St. Mary’s Hospital. I’m afraid we have some bad news.”_

*

_23 rd August 1999_

James awoke at half past seven to his phone playing a tinny rendition of Tubthumping by Chumbawumba. Alastair. He answered the phone with a grunt.

 _“Morning,”_ came an apprehensive and slightly hoarse voice.

“Morning,” James confirmed.

_“You alright?”_

“I was until you woke me,” he sat up. “Are you? You sound hungover.”

Alastair sighed. _“Blame Harry.”_

James laughed. “What can I do for you, cowboy?”

_“What? Nothing, I was just checking up. Seeing if you were alright.”_

“Yeah, I’m fine,” James said in slight confusion. “Has something happened, Al?”

 _“No, no, nothing. When do you think you’ll be back?”_ James knew the other man well enough to tell something was up, but he didn’t want to press.

“Tomorrow, probably. Merlin said he can get the details on the other prices through hacking after the more recent mishap. They’ve moved the meeting to tonight. Something about one of their men going missing. Wouldn’t know much about that, obviously.”

_“Sure, okay. I’ll see you then. Bye.”_

The call ended and James got out of bed, proceeding to dress and ready himself for work. He put his earpiece in and switched it on. “Merlin?” He said.

 _“Bloody hell James, I think this is the earliest you’ve ever checked in.”_ Merlin sounded genuinely surprised.

James shrugged as he left his room. “You have Agent Percival to thank for that one.”

 _“And here I was thinking you’d finally decided to become a professional,”_ Merlin replied in mock disappointment. _“Anyway, are you two on good morning calls now? Cute.”_

“Cute? We’re friends, not the bride and groom at one of those weddings for dogs.”

 _“Weddings for dogs?”_ Merlin repeated, dead-pan. _“And friends? Come on James, we all know it goes a bit beyond that.”_

“It doesn’t,” James replied with a huff. “What am I doing today?”

 _“You’re going to the place they told you to go. I’ll brief you on your offer on the way. They’ll be checking for earpieces so you’ll have to plant a bug. Retrieve the images, relay a signal to arrest them. You can decide what that is, as long as you can get it into a conversation,”_ Merlin said with slight apprehension.

“Zigazig-ha,” James replied.

_“How the fuck are you going to get that into a conversation, James?”_

“Watch me.”

Merlin let it go and continued. _“You give the signal, we’ll send the police in and it’s theirs to deal with then. If they ask, you’re MI5. Car’s outside. Remember James,_ you _have to leave with the images, not the police.”_

*

The allocated meeting location was a particularly unglamorous flat. It was the sort of place that obviously once, and possibly still, belonged to students, going by the apparently permanent aroma of old pot noodles and cold pizza, with a hint of pot really bringing out the underlying scents of tears and loneliness. It was a small room with an adjoining kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, all with the doors wide open. A single sofa sat in the middle of the wall, facing an old television that probably needed a few punches to get going. Between the two was a coffee table with numerous stains, some of which appeared to be of various substances that should not be on a coffee table.

As he, and several others, entered the room, he was patted down rather roughly. He glared at the poxy nineteen year old manhandling him. James assessed the men – or rather, boys – who were in control of the situation. He figured the only reason why one of the other competitors and their guards hadn’t jumped them already was due to their visible possession of guns and the sheer number of them. Once he’d finished being shoved around by the kid, he dropped to the floor to look under the couch.

“What the fuck are you doing, dickhead?” someone said. A quick glance notified him that his name was Jack Kay, leader of the gang.

James resisted from rolling his eyes. “Checking for bugs,” he replied, placing his own coin sized bug amongst the dust, dropped battery and crusty sock. He stood back up. Kay nodded.

“Place your briefcases on the table,” Kay said and all buyers followed suit. He opened the five cases and quickly ran through them. “Mr. Evans?” he said, looking at James.

“Mm?”

“Congratulations. Your offer is the highest. Everyone else can leave and we can brush over the details,” several of the people looked ready to complain, but when Kay clenched his gun once more, they all retrieved their case and left quietly. Once they had gone, the door was shut and locked. Kay turned his back to James. “I have no idea why you’re willing to pay this much, Evans, given what this is.”

“This could make my career,” James replied, walking slowly round the room to look out the single window in the room. He caught a glimpse of a few members of the police and a skip full of bin bags below the window. “And because we’re based out of the country it shouldn’t affect me too much.”

Kay left the room momentarily, before returning with another briefcase in hand. “This is everything,” as James reached to take it, Kay pulled it back. He tutted. “How-”

James cut him off with a groan he was unable to suppress.

Kay pulled the gun out of his pocket, though keeping it at his side. “What?”

“I’ve had enough of wannabe Bond villains, Mr Kay.”

“I wouldn’t have thought newspaper editors came across many of those,” Kay replied, not breaking eye contact with the man in front of him.

James nodded, sneaking a hand down his back slowly before pulling out a small handgun. “You’re right,” he wasn’t surprised when he felt the barrel of Kay’s gun against the bottom of his jaw. A quick glance proved him correct in his assumption that every other man in the room had their gun pointed at him.

Kay nodded at James’ gun. “We checked you, where did you get that?”

“You don’t want to know,” James replied. “What did you want?”

“I was going to ask for a way to know you wouldn’t spill the beans on us. Now though, it’s different.”

“So, tell me what you want. What you really, really, want,” he said, pausing after each word. One of the men laughed briefly.

“Shut up,” Kay shouted at the other man, pointing his gun angrily before turning back to James. “I’ll tell you want I want. What I really, really,” he hissed, edging closer to James’ face, “want.”

“So tell me,” James replied in hushed tones, a ghost of a smile on his lips, and said sincerely, “What do you want? What do you really, really, want?”

Kay sighed, backing off a couple of inches. “I wanna-”

“Yeah?” James interrupted.

“I wanna-”

“Yes?” he interrupted again, struggling to keep a straight face.

“I wanna-”

“Mm?”

“Stop interrupting me,” he growled. “I wanna,” he paused, as if waiting for another interruption. “I really, really, _really_ wanna-”

“Zigazig-ha?” James said and a number of the gang descended into laughter. James took the opportunity to headbutt Kay, snatching the case away from him and as the police barged in the door, he smashed out the window and into the skip outside. He stood, brushed himself off and walked away calmly.

*

When James entered his house several hours later, he was in a good mood. The job was complete and it had been done to such a high standard Arthur told him he didn’t even have to complete the related paperwork. Not that he did it much anyway, he usually paid off one of the kids in tech to do it for him, but it was a nice gesture. He began to remove his suit jacket when his good mood was broken, however, when he walked into the room to see Alastair quickly stand up from sitting on the edge of the sofa with a grave expression on his face.

“Alastair, what is it?” James asked uncertainly, hanging his jacket on the edge of the door. He walked to stand in front of his friend.

“James,” Alastair started cautiously. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Did you eat all my ice cream?” he joked half-heartedly.

“James,” Alastair swallowed. “Last night, I got a call. _You_ got a call,” he breathed out. “It was the hospital. St. Mary’s.”

“Alastair,” James warned, though he didn’t know why.

“It’s your mum. She had a heart attack,” he said.

“Is she okay?”

Alastair remained silent, as if he was looking for words he couldn’t find.

James grabbed his shoulders roughly. “Alastair, is she alright?”

He shook his head.

James dropped his arms to his sides. “Oh.”


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so there's some more angst here rather than my crappy jokes but i guess but it's not too bad, considering. enjoy, i guess? please correct me of any mistakes!! thank you! i think there's one more chapter until i finish up where i want to be - although i'm not denying there's more i want to do with this so i might turn it into a series if i get more time.

_1 st September 1999_

Alastair hadn’t spoken to James in over a week. After he broke the news to his friend, the other man quietly asked him to leave and he had obliged, leaving without a word and with only his coat and his dog. James was given a two week leave, Alastair filling out most of his paperwork for him. Alastair had gone to the funeral with James, although no words were exchanged throughout it. While he was never a very empathetic person, the whole situation was painful. He hated seeing James as he was, like he had lost his words. But he knew James, and he knew that he needed space.

James returned to work ten days later, cutting short his leave with the explanation that he couldn’t sit around moping all day and wanted to be back in the field. Merlin obliged, giving him a joint assignment with Alastair. James didn’t say much about that, simply leaving the room with a curt nod, leaving Alastair alone with Merlin.

“I don’t think he’ll want me with him, Merlin,” Alastair said solemnly.

“Maybe not, but he needs supervision. No unnecessary loss of life. James has always been too trigger happy, and given the situation,” Merlin trailed off. “Anyway, he doesn’t have a choice. We’re not a democracy.”

Alastair frowned. “What are we then?”

“More of a munificent dictatorship.”

And that was that. Alastair left with the brief in hand. He ran through it. The objection was to take out the leader of a terrorist cell – a nameless one at that - by breaking into the underground complex they had settled in. Alastair was fairly sure it was just an old sewage system done up with a shit-ton of paint and Glade air fresheners. Send one agent as a distraction, the other to take the man out. Alastair had begrudgingly taking the role of distraction – break in, get captured and get as much information out of the guy as possible while putting off the part where a terrorist leader shoots a special agent in the face. All while the other man – James – breaks in without being caught and works his way through the compound, taking out the guards and ultimately the ring leader. Simple enough.

*

Alastair had few fears, but one he had had to face on more than one occasion was James’ frankly insane driving. The man drove like he being pursued, even if the trip was only to Morrisons to pick up a few beers and a microwave meal. On any other occasion, Alastair would have rushed in to grab the car keys and hop into the driver’s seat a few minutes before James even came within sight of the vehicle, however for this particular consignment Alastair was required to get out first and so it was decided that this time James had to drive.

“You got your seat belt on?” James asked, voice apparently rough from lack of use.

“Of course I’ve got my seat belt on, you’re driving,” Alastair replied, white knuckled grip on the roof handle above the car door.

The ghost of a smile that passed across James’ lips warmed Alastair’s heart. Alastair took to fiddling through the radio stations, stopping on some classical channel. As soon as his hand fell away, James skipped to a different one. Alastair glared half-heartedly. James’ hand hovered slightly away from the buttons, the digital screen reading ‘Virgin’.

“Hey look, it’s you,” James dead-panned.

Alastair slapped his hand away and switched to some BBC station with talking and not music. After about fifteen minutes of nothing but listening to Johnnie Walker prattle on about some crap about the Rugby World Cup, Alastair broke the silence. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“It’s me, when do I do anything stupid?” James replied, avoiding the statement.

Alastair sighed. “Too much of the time for a grown man, James,” he paused for a moment. “I’m serious. I know it’s tough at the moment, believe me, but don’t take this as an opportunity to take out your anger and let it cloud your judgement.”

James didn’t reply. He clenched his jaw.

“Just-” Alastair cut himself off. “Please listen to me on this one.”

*

For somewhere that was supposed to be the base of one of the most dangerous groups in the country, it was surprisingly easy to break in to, apart from the thirty yard crawl through a sewage pipe. While disused, the thin tunnel continued its shit carrying legacy through a god-awful smell and with sides coated with a thin layer of dirt that Alastair hoped was just mud. He coughed harshly.

 _“Not much further now, Percival,”_ Merlin told him. _“Sadly no storm on the other side.”_

“What?” Alastair asked, wondering what the hell Merlin was on about.

James took that moment to butt in. _“I’m ashamed, Al. You haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption?”_

“No,” Alastair replied. “Is it the one about the war?”

James made an offended noise. _“Is it the one about the war? Jesus Alastair, you can’t describe films like that. They’re not Friends episodes. And it’s about a prison and I am going to see to it personally that you see it.”_

Alastair smiled slightly. He never thought he’d be happy to hear James blather on about his incompetence, but here he was. “I look forward to it,” he said with a strain in his voice as he squeezed his arms into a position to open the hatch above him, which was screwed tightly closed. With a bit of force he dislodged it and kicked it open, pulling himself out with a gasp into the above room. Never had the smell of disinfectant smelt so good.

 _“Remember, make sure to put up a somewhat decent fight, it’d be more believable,”_ Merlin instructed.

Some of the guards must have heard the noise because several charged round the corner like a bunch of school kids in a game of Bulldog. Alastair took them out easily, even when toning down how well he fought. He rounded the corner with a fast walk, running into a group of around eight, what could only be described as, henchmen. He took down two quickly before pressing one of them up against the wall, purposely leaving his back vulnerable.

It was almost embarrassing to him how long the other five took to seize the opportunity and haul him back, before one delivered a blow to his face. The punch was strong enough to bruise, though certainly not to knock anyone out, but Alastair dropped like a sack of potatoes and allowed himself to be dragged along the dusty floor. He was lowered – strangely delicately – into a pit around three or so metres deep. There, whoever was dragging him before snapped what felt like _shackles_ onto his ankles and removed his jacket, checking his pockets and taking out a gun and several other pieces of non-essential equipment that he’d put in to make himself look like a stereotypical spy. They removed his earpiece but missed a small microphone tucked into the inside of his shirt.

“You know, I didn’t think shackles were still a valid method of restraint,” he said as he sat up, attempting to get the simple message of ‘bring pliers’ across to James.

“I knew you were awake,” someone said, and simply by the fact he was trying to sound intimidating and apparently like an antagonist on a kids’ show, he guessed it was the leader. “Don’t suppose you want to tell me who you’re working with, do you?”

“Don’t suppose you’ll to tell me your name, will you?” Alastair replied, standing up with slight difficulty.

The man chuckled and _god_ Alastair thought he was full of it. “Ah, pleasantries. I suppose you can call me John Smith.”

“No one in real life is called John Smith. No parent with the surname ‘Smith’ has thought, ‘hey, let’s make this name even more generic’,” Alastair was well aware he sounded like a dick, but he needed the time.

The man sighed. A long and condescending sigh that sounded more like a parent disappointed at their child than a man attempting 'threatening'. “I’m not spilling my secrets to give you more time to think up an escape. Now, tell me who you work for,” he turned his back to him, turning something, presumably some sort of tap. Water began filling the pit.

“Are you planning on drowning me?” Alastair said, getting the situation across to Merlin and James.

“I suppose. I can stop it if you tell me who you’re working for. It’s not a government, I bet. You’re not a good enough agent for that,” ‘John Smith’ said.

Alastair pouted in mock sadness. “I’m offended. How do you know I’m not bluffing?”

The man began pacing along the edge of the filling pit. “I’m a gambling man by trade. I know. Tell me who you’re working for and I’ll let you go.”

Alastair shook his head. “I’d rather not. My employer would not be forgiving of such betrayal,” the water was just above his knees. Alastair felt numerous bubbles rushing out of his leg as it filled with water.

“Well then, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave the water on,” he said as he sat on the edge of the pit, feet dangling over the side.

The water was waist-height by then, and Alastair knew that James should have gotten there a good few minutes ago, which meant he hadn’t listened to Alastair’s previous request of remaining professional. He needed Smith to stay there long enough for James to arrive.

Alastair began to put across behavioural tells of fear. They were only small but he figured because Smith was a gambling man he’d pick up on them. Sure enough, while he didn’t say anything, he watched him closely with a smirk on his face.

“I-I can help you,” Alastair stuttered. Smith gestured for him to continue. The water was at his lower chest. “I have two degrees in Biochemistry and Physics from Oxford. I can help you.”

“What can you do?” he sounded intrigued.

“Bombs. Chemical weapons,” he replied, raising his chin as the water reached his neck.

“Well,” Smith said as the water continued to rise. Alastair took one final deep breath. “I’m afraid I already have those.”

Alastair closed his eyes, remaining calm and slowing his heart rate. He could hold his breath for several minutes, which he hoped was enough time for James to end his mission of vengeance and do his damn job. The water continued to rise until it was about a metre above him, when it stopped. He looked up and could make out Smith standing on the edge of the pool. He turned to leave, but was stopped, quite quickly, by a bullet through his skull. He fell into the water and blood flooded Alastair’s vision.

He could hear muffled noises of James taking out the other men, before a loud splash as the agent jumped into the water. He swam down, looking at Alastair and giving him the okay hand symbol, presumably as a question. Alastair responded with the same gesture, although his chest was awfully tight. James pulled the pliers out of his pocket and waved them at him with a grin. He smiled weakly back and James frowned. Suddenly, he rushed up to the surface and took a large breath, before swimming back down, grabbing his friends face and pressing his mouth firmly to his.

It took Alastair a moment to register what the _hell_ was going on, his eyes widening in surprise, before a steady stream of air entered his mouth and he realised what James was doing. James pulled away with a nod, and Alastair nodded firmly back. James swam down to the bottom of the pit, starting to loosen the bolts the chains were attached to. It must have taken two minutes to undo the first, but the second was loose in under one. He pulled upwards on the chains and they both swam up, big, gasping breaths as they reached the surface once more. They pulled themselves onto the side, James out the water first, pulling Alastair out. He gripped his shoulders.

"Are you alright?"

Alastair nodded, still catching his breath.

*

After they left, dried off and debriefed at Kingsman headquarters, the sun had already set. James hadn’t said much since and Alastair began to feel like the blips of the normal James were just a fluke. They went home to their separate houses and just as Alastair was setting off to bed, he got a phone call.

 _“Hey,”_ James slurred.

“Where are you?” Alastair asked.

 _“A bar. Outside a bar,”_ James replied.

Alastair sighed. “Do you know what bar?” There was silence, and Alastair took that for a no. “Can you describe where you are?”

_“It’s uh. It’s dark.”_

Alastair rubbed his hand over his eyes. “It’s night time, James, of course it’s dark.”

 _“Oh,”_ there was another long pause. _“There’s a road. Couple of houses on the other side. I think there’s a park. You know, the one where they sell drugs to students.”_

“Yeah, I know it. I’ll be there in ten,” Alastair replied before hanging up, only grumbling slightly as he left the house and got in his car.

He kept a look out as he drove, in case James had decided to go for a wander. As he reached the bar in question, he discovered that James was, in fact, exactly where he said, sitting on the kerb. Alastair got out of his car.

“You okay?” Alastair asked the man, who looked up from staring at the tarmac, looking sincerely upset.

“They won’t give me any more to drink, Al,” he said.

Alastair sat down on the kerb next to his friend. “You’ve had too much.”

“Still not enough.”

Alastair put an arm around his friend. “I’m sorry, James.”

“It’s just- I never got to say goodbye, you know?” James ran his hands down his face. “I don’t think I ever really appreciated her enough.”

“James, you loved her. That’s what counts. And she knew that, of course she did. Didn’t appreciate her? Like hell you didn’t. You called her every few days just to check she was okay and tell her you loved her. You did fine,” he said softly.

James rested his head on Alastair's shoulder. They sat there for ages. It felt like hours, though Alastair was sure it must have been about thirty minutes. Then, James nodded, took a deep breath and stood up. Stood and promptly misplaced a foot and stumbled. Alastair stood quickly and looped the man’s arm over his shoulder, dragging him into the car.

As Alastair got back into the car, James was staring at him, pupils blown wide in intoxication as he reached out to touch Alastair’s black eye. Alastair batted his hand away and James crossed his arms and stared out the window.

"I'm sorry," James said.

Alastair glanced at him, taking his eyes off the road. "What?"

"I fucked up," he said. "I cut it too close. I should have listened to you."

"It's fine, James."

"You could have died, Al! You could have died, and it would have been my fault," James sounded close to tears.

He dropped a hand onto James' knee. "James, really. It's fine. I'm fine."

Alastair decided to take James back to his house, rather than James’, simply because it was closer and the longer they spent in the car, the more likely James was to fall asleep and therefore the more likely it was that he’d put his back out hauling a large man child into his bed.

The plan didn’t work, and Alastair ended up having to carry the idiot anyway.

After a gruelling climb up the stairs, he deposited James in his bed with a sigh of relief, taking off the other man’s shoes and jacket before chucking the duvet over him haphazardly. He returned downstairs and collapsed on the sofa, falling asleep seconds after hitting the couch.


	13. Chapter XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long update! Life kind of picked up again. Also, kind of short ending, but I didn't want to overdo it with unnecessary situations. Anyway, as always, correct me of any mistakes.
> 
> [[EDIT: I'm changing the chapter post date on this chapter because I've just gone through an edited the whole thing lmao and want it updated]]

_31 st December 1999_

Unlike most work get-togethers, James decided he would not attend the Kingsman New Year’s party. He had it on good authority that the bar service was different than had been from previous events, which meant no banter with or bargains from Raoul, the bartender who had served the organisation every year and recently had been forced to sign a confidentiality agreement following numerous occasions wherein a member of staff got incredibly drunk and spilled some of the most top secret information in the country, so there really wasn’t much point in his opinion. Stealing booze from Alastair’s surprisingly well stocked house was the more economically sound situation, at least for him. The man had a pantry.

The discovery of said pantry had led to James being assigned a particularly dull and lengthy mission after going off on Arthur about how _he_ didn’t have a pantry and giving Agent Percival a house with one was, to put it simply, favouritism. And the amount of high end wine in the pantry meant that Alastair was either particularly lucky in raffles, very bad with his finances or got paid more.

Which was how Alastair and James ended up sprawled on Alastair’s stupidly coloured sofa, more than moderately tipsy and watching crap telly.

“I can’t believe Westlife got Christmas number one,” James muttered.

“Are you still hung up on that?” Alastair groaned.

James gave an affirmative noise. “And with an ABBA song as well. Not even original.”

“Come on James, what’s so bad about them? You like Take That.”

James pointed at him sternly. “Don’t you dare compare Take That to Westlife, Alastair, don’t even dare.”

Alastair held his hands up in surrender, sinking further back into the couch in a position that couldn’t be comfortable and leaving him with approximately fifteen chins.

With a long sigh, James stood up and wandered out of the living room and into the hallway.

“Where are you going?” Alastair called after him.

“Kitchen, more wine,” James replied, looking around the hallway for a doorway he was sure was there a few hours ago.

“Wrong way,” Alastair said.

“Oh,” James said before opening a door, revealing a grand piano. “Hey, Al!”

Alastair appeared beside him a few moments later, looking at him questioningly “What is it?”

James pointed at the piano.

Alastair grinned, taking a seat before the instrument. He closed his eyes as if he was trying to remember a symphony, but as soon as his fingers hit the keys he began to play a very familiar, upbeat and jovial tune.

“Mr Blobby?” James questioned.

Alastair nodded silently and stopped playing and both of them doubled over into fits of laughter.

“Now _that_ was a good number one,” James stated.

“You take offence to Westlife, but not Mr Blobby?”

“You’re damn right,” James replied.

He stood up straight, before returning to the living room, Alastair following suit, before they both collapsed back onto the sofa. He looked at the television – some celebratory program about ‘saying farewell to the 20th century’.

“You know, I’ve never watched the New Year fireworks in London. Except on the telly,” Alastair said suddenly, sobering up a little, feet strewn across James’ lap.

James looked near on offended. “What? Never?”

“No,” Al replied, “never had the interest, I suppose. Been here nearly eight years. Can’t really see much from this house. Don’t really fancy standing in the streets all day just to get a good viewpoint, and I don’t think I would want to be out in the cold for so long if I couldn’t see properly.”

James frowned. “They’re in the sky, Al, the crowd doesn’t go vertically.”

Alastair just shrugged.

James patted Al’s legs, getting him to move them, before standing up. “Get your coat.”

“James-”

“Get your coat,” he insisted, putting his own on.

Alastair gave in, following James’ lead with a sigh.

James wrapped his scarf round his neck and checked his watch. “Nearly half eleven. We can make it.”

“Make it where? Everywhere’s at a stand-still now and there won’t be space anyway,” he said as James opened the door. “James.”

“Trust me,” James said with a smirk, grasping Alastair’s gloved hand with his own and roughly pulling him after him. He threw the door closed behind him before running into an alley.

“James,” Alastair began, attempting to sound annoyed but unable to keep the smile off his face as the other man dragged him through a labyrinth of backstreets and side roads. James looked to him briefly, laughing under his breath.

The air was bitingly cold, but the sky was clear and the moon hung high in the sky. It, along with the street lamps, glistened off the frosted windows of the building and off the murky puddles on the ground, somehow making the dingy area look vaguely vibrant.

They carried on like that for another quarter of an hour or so, giggly and out of breath as they dashed through streets that were, on the most part, empty. The only people they saw were those through pub windows, apart from a couple of people alone in the streets or one group of students drinking in a park. Then James lead them onto a road Alastair knew ran parallel to the Thames and they slowed with a stumble, hands unlinking to brace themselves on their legs as they caught their breath.

“Come on,” James said, taking off down the street once more. With a smile, Alastair followed.

They reached the entrance of the Shell Centre and James brushed himself off, putting on a stern face and pulled out some sort of ID. They entered and he flashed it at a security guard. “Health and safety,” he said, and the guard nodded.

The buzz died down slightly as they stood in the lift for a couple of minutes, watching the numbers above the door increase slowly. James looked almost tetchy, as if the lift was purposely slowing them down. When it reached the top floor and the doors opened with a ping, James bounded out of the elevator happily, heading to one of the large windows. He took a glove off and opened it, clambering up and out, before offering a hand to Alastair and hoisting him through it too.

The rush of cold air hit him hard as they walked onto the open roof and sat on it next to each other, shoulder to shoulder.

James produced a large thermos, opening it and taking a sip before offering it to Alastair. He took it, the warm, fruity scent of mulled wine greeting him before taking a long sip. The city stretched as far as the eye could see, the crowd of people near the Eye looking somehow both very small and very large at the same time.

“That’s why I’ve never been. Too many people,” Alastair said, not looking at James.

The people far below bustled, looking less like individuals and more like one entity. A few helicopters flew overhead, filming the scene in order to get the best shot. Alastair almost pitied the pilots and cameramen, having to work at this time, watching the unity of the season yet being unable to join in.

“Mm,” James replied. “Thank you.”

Alastair looked at him, frowning slightly in confusion. “Why?”

James turned his head and made eye contact. “For being there.”

"You'd do the same for me," he replied, looking out over the crowd.

"Yeah," James said softly. He turned to Alastair, alcohol buzzing in his veins. "You're the most important person in my life."

As the sound of Big Ben rang out, the world seemed to go silent. The bells and the barely audible countdown of the crowd was all that seemed to exist except each other.

The last few tolls rang out, and time seemed to slow for Alastair.

He met James' eyes, hand moving to his cup his face. His heart pounded in his ears as he moved closer, intensely aware of James just  _not pulling away_.

As the last bell rang, there was one moment of pure silence.

Then their lips met with an explosion, colours and sounds better than any firework display. And in that moment, that was all there was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of abrupt ending, but thank you for sticking with me until the end with this! I've been poor at updating so sorry about that, I guess. I have more ideas for this, so I hope to maybe continue this as a series in the future.


End file.
